


Pegasus II

by RhinoHill



Series: Pegasus [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Cats, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 22,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27474214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhinoHill/pseuds/RhinoHill
Summary: Sam and Jack may co-own a cat, but the stumbling steps that take them from colleagues, to co-parents, to the lovers they really want to be, are not exactly easy.This is the continuation of Pegasus, which I would love you to read before you dive in here.I would also love to know your feelings about this piece.It deals with imperfect love, with damaged people redeeming each other, and above all, with peace and joy in tumultuous times.Oh, and cats. There's cats.I do hope you're not allergic xo
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Series: Pegasus [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2007430
Comments: 271
Kudos: 136





	1. Drop

I’m lost in the softness of her kiss.

I float on a cloud of her closeness.

Her hand on my neck, her hair sliding through my fingers, are the only things tethering me to the earth.

That, and manic purring that issues from our feet where Peg weaves himself into contented figures of eight between and around us, his movements reminding me of a hand fasting ceremony I’d witnessed one one of our missions. According to Daniel, earth Pagans did something similar as a wedding ceremony. It wasn’t legally binding in most states.

Something not legally binding could be done without alerting the Air Force.

Sam captures my lower lip between her teeth, and an avalanche of desire drowns out everything except her.

But she stiffens at my body’s reaction.

“Sorry.” She pulls back, staring at her feet with glowing cheeks.

“Wh— what?”

Realisation drips icy water onto the warm bliss in my brain.

Her scars run deeper than I ever expected, if this is her reaction to my arousal.

A storm of anger floods under my skin. At every person who made her believe that she’s at fault for being who she is. I knew too many guys who had made throw-away comments to their girlfriends about being a cock-tease. As if every erection was a parking ticket that needed to be paid.

Fuck, I even tried it once or twice, believing my cocky arrogance to be somehow sexy.

I could rip my own throat out for doing that, right now.

“Sam.”

I rest my forehead against hers as I search for words.

She’s tense in my arms. Guarded,

I wade in, because I’m terrified that if I don’t, I’ll lose her.

“I love the way you kiss.” My thumb traces the line of her lips. “I love how you make me feel. That doesn’t mean I want to do any more than hang with you.”

Her smile remains hesitant.

At my feet, a pair of golden eyes in a ginger face evaluates my motives.

_Pull me out if I go the wrong way, Peg,_ I think at him.

The cat blinks slowly.

Okay, I think.

For better or for worse, here I go.

My heartbeat slows.

I have to shift my left foot back to brace my body for her weight.

As I step away, my left arm sweeps down and under her knees, my left capturing her shoulders as she tips back.

In the space of a breath, she’s cradled in my arms.

She could break my nose, smash my windpipe, fight her way free in a dozen different ways.

Which would be awkward once the paramedics arrive on the scene, if I’m honest.

Yet she relaxes after her initial yelp of surprise.

“Do ya trust me not to drop you, Carter?” I ask.

She nods.

“Of course, sir.”

I close my eyes and brace for the question I actually want the answer to.

“Then, do you trust me not to drop you, Sam?”


	2. Bacon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pegasus prowls around our feet, sniffing the air.
> 
> “Hmm-hmm, little buddy,” I agree with him. “Bacon two nights in a row. We’re lucky guys.”
> 
> “Oh brother.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ve created a monster.”
> 
> I plant a kiss on her cheek.
> 
> “If by monster, you mean guy with good taste in food and great taste in women, you’ve created two.” 
> 
> \--oOo--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short interlude of sweetness, because it's a busy week but I hate leaving you hanging...  
> xo
> 
> \--oOo--

We could have ordered in, but the quiet comfort of cooking together tugged at the emptiness below my heart.

So I find myself chopping bacon, sweet bell pepper and onion that she stirs into a creamy sauce, and stealing glances at her.

The steam rising from the spaghetti pot makes tendrils of hair dance around her face.

When I hand her the chopping board with the final ingredients, I wrap my arms around her waist from behind.

She leans her back against my chest, rests her head on my cheek, and keeps stirring.

Being with her is as natural as breathing.

Holding her loosens a constriction in my gut.

I close my eyes and let her gentle movements rock me.

Her voice startles me out of my reverie.

“What?” I blink both eyes.

She shifts her body to the side to face me, a small frown of concern between her eyes.

“Are you tired?” She repeats.

“Not tired. Happy.”

Only after the words slip out, do I recognise the feeling.

Her face softens around her smile before she turns back to the pot.

Pegasus prowls around our feet, sniffing the air.

“Hmm-hmm, little buddy,” I agree with him. “Bacon two nights in a row. We’re lucky guys.”

“Oh brother.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ve created a monster.”

I plant a kiss on her cheek.

“If by monster, you mean guy with good taste in food and great taste in women, you’ve created two.”

After dinner, we linger on the couch. I want the clock to slow its beating, I want to stretch the evening to eternity, but both of us are running on excess adrenaline and too little sleep.

When she stifles her second yawn, I lift the expanse of stretched-out cat off our legs and stand.

“Are you leaving?”

At the edge of disappointment in her tone, the butterfly chorus line in my stomach thumps into an enthusiastic line dance.

God, I want to crush her against me, to carry her to the bedroom and let my lips explore every hidden dip and curve of her. But her reaction to our first kiss frightened me.

“We both need some sleep if we have any chance of facing the mountains of reports tomorrow.” I have to fight to keep the regret out of my words.

She nods, a tiny movement of her head, and rises gracefully to walk me to the door.

On the threshold, we both hesitate.

Damnit, I don’t want to go.

“What’re you up to tomorrow night?” I stall.

She wets her lips with her tongue, a self-conscious negation of something she thinks may not be well received.

I know her so well.

I love her so much.

“I need to finish reviewing an article for the American Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics.”

She focuses carefully on a spot behind my shoulder.

Shit. She’s a _reviewer_ for the most prestigious astrophysics journal in the country, if not the world?

I want to tell her I realise what a big deal that is. But I’m not sure how to say that without sounding patronising. And she’s had about a million too many patronising pricks to deal with in her life.

“Aah, an evening of girl talk,” I joke instead. “Lucky you, Peg. Watch yer paws or she’ll paint your nails pink.”

“Would not!” She huffs. “His complexion is much better suited to sparkly green.”

With a chuckle, I press my lips to her mouth.

“I’ll see you at work tomorrow, Carter.”

“Good night, Sir,” she murmurs in a voice that turns my belly to liquid flame.


	3. Girl talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sam, I — you don’t need to answer any of this. I just never want to hurt you. And I’ve read about your diagnosis. The dyspareunia. I was trying to figure out what triggers it for you without asking.”
> 
> He falls silent.
> 
> I can picture him running his hand through his hair.
> 
> My left hand, the one not cradling the phone, creeps around my ankles and pulls them closer.
> 
> When he told me he loved me more than anyone in the world, I thought he could never say anything more powerful.
> 
> But he just called it a diagnosis. 
> 
> Not 'my little problem' like Pete had.
> 
> Not 'my hangup' like Jonas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo.  
> Here comes a personal chapter.
> 
> A massive thanks to everyone who encouraged me to risk writing this.  
> And if one person reading this feels less alone, I am so grateful.  
> xo

*Sam*

I roll my head from side to side and adjust my chin on my hand with a sigh.

Reviewing this paper shouldn’t be taking such a long time. The author is clearly competent and the research being presented isn’t revolutionary. I should have been done an hour ago.

But my mind keeps drifting to last night. To the feel of his lips, the way he held me while we cooked, the solid presence of his chest behind my back.

I still can’t believe I kissed him. What a reckless thing to do. If he’d stepped back and gently reminded me of our ranks —because I just know he would be gentle about it, his brown eyes full of regret— if he’d done that, I would actually have walked out into the night and not stopped till I reached the state border.

Then again…

_I love you more than anyone in the world. We could be married._

He’d said those words to me. And then the world had almost ended. There had damn well been extenuating circumstances.

I close my eyes and remember his fingers in my hair.

My phone buzzes on the counter next to me.

\- _Just checkin that Peg is surviving the girl talk_ , his message reads.

My heart floats higher in my chest.

I bite my lip, considering a response.

With a giddy laugh, I give in to the impulse and pull the pot of dawn-pink nail varnish closer.

From his vantage point on an open text book, Peg wrinkles his nose at me as I apply a quick coat to each hand. He scrinches his eyes in disgust, and while I hope it’s at the smell, I can’t fault his judgement.

“Come on, Peg. The colour’s a joke,” I defend myself. “Look, he’ll get it. He’s the one who mentioned pink nails.”

The cat lets out a long, loud breath and hides his nose under a paw.

“Oh, seriously, be kind! This is new to me, Peg. He was my boss long before he became your dad.”

The ball of orange fur doesn’t even twitch in acknowledgement.

Huh. Teenagers.

Holding the phone awkwardly with still-wet nails, I position my other hand on the printed paper and snap a photo.

\- _He’s up next. He just can’t decide between the sparkly green and the purple shimmer,_ I tap out my reply.

It doesn’t take long for the bouncing dots to appear on my screen, echoing the movement of my heart.

_\- Quasi-Kepplerian accretion discs, huh? Ah, what stories you must have regaled the boys with behind the bleachers in school._

I shake my head at the way he picked up on the title of the journal article and turned it into an image that sparked heat in my belly.

“Now _that_ is how you flirt, Peg.” I point the phone screen at the lump of unimpressed cat.

And I want to flirt back. For the first time in years, the thought of it doesn’t fill me with clammy dread. Maybe it’s because of how comfortable it felt to cook and eat with him last night. As if he really would understand my problems and not be put off by them.

As unlikely as my brain tells me that is.

Shaking the doubt out of my head, I tap out a reply and quickly hit send before I lose my nerve.

_\- Actually, my stories were the reason most boys didn’t want to be behind the bleachers with me._

I re-read the message.

Crap.

That was about as sexy as a dead octopus.

Or a girl afraid of sex.

I grab my phone again, determined to salvage my stupidity.

\- _At least the girls didn’t mind._

The three dots bounce, then stop, then bounce again.

The land line next to my bed rings.

Watching the now silent screen of my cell with growing unease, I pad to the bedroom.

“Hullo?” I greet.

“Girls, Carter?”

His voice is like whisky over pebbles.

I sink onto the mattress and hide my smile behind my hand.

“Hmm. They were always more attentive, Sir,” I laugh my reply.

His voice continues, gravelly and teasing. My God, I’m grateful he doesn’t talk like that at work. I’d never be able to stand up straight.

“Ya know, I’m developing a real fondness for those quasi-kepplerian disc thingies. Whaddaya say tomorrow night you take me behind the bleachers and teach me all about them? I’ll hang on every word that falls from your lips.”

“You know the rules though, Sir. You have to pass the pop-quiz before you get a kiss.”

“Damn. I knew it sounded too good to be easy. Oh well, you’re worth the work.”

This is delicious and heady and not nearly as frightening as my usual conversations with boyfriends.

Is he my boyfriend? This man I’ve kissed only once and who I’m still calling Sir?

I draw my knees up to my chin, trying to stifle the sudden fear.

The silence stretches.

“Sam?”

His voice is suddenly filled with care.

I swallow.

“Jack?”

“Have you? Women, I mean?”

Shit.

“Is that…” I close my eyes. “Is that a problem?”

“God, no! I was asking because…”

I hear him taking a deep breath.

When he speaks again, any hint of teasing is gone. He’s talking the way he does when I wake up from taking a serious hit.

“I’m handling this like an ass,” he sighs.

“Sam, I — you don’t need to answer any of this. I just never want to hurt you. And I’ve read about your diagnosis. The dyspareunia. I was trying to figure out what triggers it for you without asking.”

He falls silent.

I can picture him running his hand through his hair.

My left hand, the one not cradling the phone, creeps around my ankles and pulls them closer.

When he told me he loved me more than anyone in the world, I thought he could never say anything more powerful.

But he just called it a diagnosis.

Not _my little problem_ like Pete had.

Not _my hangup_ like Jonas.

I close my eyes as his words rain over me.

“Sam, you don’t have to tell me. But whether the pain is triggered by arousal, or by orgasm, or … or by penetration, whatever the cause, we can handle it together. I just don’t want to do something that hurts you without knowing.”

My world has swung upside down. I’m dangling in zero gravity, my bed the only contact with the solid world.

I remember the strained embarrassment with which Jonas had taken me to the sex therapist his mates had recommended, the tension in his jaw as he’d asked me to explain my _issues_ to a stranger.

“Sam?”

Jack’s voice reaches me through the rarified air.

“Please come over,” is all I can bring myself to say.

A million times in the fifteen minutes that follow, I hate myself.

For my weakness.

For failing at the most basic part of being a woman.

For falling apart the moment he called it a diagnosis rather than a fault.

The kitchen is clean, the curtains are drawn, and if I could run into the night to hide my shame I would. Except he would come looking for me, and that would make my weakness worse.

The least I could do is not run away.

I’m vibrating with tension by the time his truck pulls into the drive, but I force myself to wait outside the front door, my shoulders squared, hiding in the pool of shadow beside the porch light.

I can smell him as he approaches, his subtle, woody cologne sharpened by adrenalin.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made you drive all the way here.”

I barely get the words out before his arms wrap around my shoulders and pull me into the light.

“C’mon.” The word rumbles against my arm as he herds me inside, down the corridor and back to my bedroom.

He toes off his shoes, pulls back the covers and holds them for me.

But he doesn’t undress before getting in to hold me against him.

The uncanny sense of being caught in zero gravity returns with his silence, with the way he strokes my hair and doesn’t press me for any explanation. After leaving his home and driving to me at midnight.

A desperate corner of my brain wants to believe that this is how life could be. That he could love me without it mattering.

But even that tiny corner can’t cling to its delusion for ever.

“There’s nothing physically wrong with me,” I push the words into the cocoon of his care, knowing they’ll fester, knowing they’ll end up rotting his patience.

No matter. I’ll do this for him.

He is not my boyfriend.

He is the man I have loved for probably seven of the eight years that I’ve known him, if I dare admit it to myself.

He’s one of my closest friends.

I’d die for him.

The least I can offer him is the truth, and the chance to back away.

“It’s nothing physical,” I repeat. “It’s just memories and fear. And the pain is only bad when…” I falter.

His hand trails along the curve of my neck and comes to rest between my shoulder blades. I don’t know if he understands how much it calms my thundering heart.

“It’s penetration,” I force out between my teeth.

“Fear is real,” he says simply. “So are memories. You’ve woken me from enough nightmares to know that.”

His breathing deepens within minutes, while my brain still spins madly.

When his hand on my back slackens in sleep, I allow my shoulders to unclench a fraction.

I wake up in an empty bed, fully clothed, five minutes before my alarm.

The smell of coffee taunts me from the kitchen.

The things I told him haunt me from the corners of the dawn-grey room.

I can’t face him.

I draw the covers over my head and wish for oblivion.

The alarm shrills anyway.

Footsteps pad down the passage towards me, strengthening the smell of creamy coffee.

His hand finds mine as I reach out to silence the alarm.

“Scoot over,” he says with a lopsided grin.

Halfway through our coffee, he slings an arm over my shoulder and hooks his foot between my ankles.

And all the incredulous questions I want to ask about how long he can really want to be with a woman this broken, refuse to be spoken.

Because not even tomorrow can ruin this perfect morning.


	4. Cornflower blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He steps closer, and my heart stutters. 
> 
> How can he have held me in my bed all night in complete comfort, have tucked his feet between mine this morning, yet make me want to faint when he steps towards me in his uniform?
> 
> \--oOo--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goddamn, why is dating so hard?  
> I feel awkward even writing about it!
> 
> I dedicate this chapter's supreme awkwardness to all of you who are going through that peculiar torture right now. xo
> 
> \--oOo--

*Sam*

I spend longer picking out my clothes than the drive to the SGC warrants, settling on a figure-hugging cornflower blue halterneck over black jeans.

It’s casual, but the cut gives me a bit of cleavage, at least compared to what is normally visible over my sports bra and plain black T.

And I slip on low-heeled sandals that will put my eyes almost level with his.

Not that I’ve spent years checking out our height difference.

I snort to myself as I walk to the kitchen.

“Pwoar.”

I come to a halt in the doorway, unsure what his exclamation requires as a response.

There’s also the fact that standing right where I am doesn’t give me a bad view.

He’s dressed out of the grab-bag that we all have in our cars. I recognise the simple style that can be thrown on for an undercover operation or hidden under a dress shirt or combat uniform.

It means a simple, fitted T in a neutral colour over plain jeans or cargo pants.

In his case, the combo is a white T-shirt and dark blue jeans, both less baggy than his usual style, both showing the cut of his muscles far better than usual.

I’m still not sure what his _phwoar_ was about, but I’m saying the same internally. And in my case, it’s entirely appreciative.

Pegasus releases a thunderous purr from his vantage point against Jack’s chest.

“Yeah, Peg. You and me both, bud,” he murmurs as he scratches the spot behind the cat’s damaged ear.

I wonder if he realises he’s the only person our cat allows to touch that part of his body.

And again, I resonate with the orange bundle in his arms. There are parts of my history I’ve not let anybody but Jack know about.

I wish — I desperately wish — that one day he can also touch the parts of me that no-one else can reach.

But that’s my issue. Not his.

I lift my chin, force the melancholic thoughts aside. I have the man I love and the cat I adore here. In my home. I will not waste the happiness I have right now by pining over dreams of more.

“That’s breakfast I assume you’re wanting, gentlemen?” I drop a wink and a small bow.

Jack grabs a paw and stabs himself in the chest with it.

“Nah, Mom. You trained this guy well. He sorted me out when he got you your coffee.”

I can’t help the grin growing on my face.

“Uh-huh, Pegleg. He makes a pretty good cup of coffee,” I admit, stepping close enough to tickle the purring body under its chin. “But you know, if we want him to hang around, I probably have to feed him, too. It’s only fair.”

An arm circles my waist, pulling me close to his chest, trapping my hands against him, flaring heat in my stomach.

“I can get toast at work.”

His voice is liquid fire.

He leans his lips close to mine.

“I plan to spend as much time as possible enjoying what that shirt does to your eyes, and what your eyes do to me.”

Pegasus wriggles indignantly out of the parent sandwich, leaving me nowhere to turn my glowing cheeks.

He runs his hand down my bare arm, up the curve of my spine.

His lips edge along my jaw, down my neck.

I’m on fire with his touch.

My eyes drift close. My breath catches in my throat.

He pauses.

“Sam, is this okay?”

And in a flash, it all makes sense. The strange, teasing questions about women that he backed away from so quickly.

He had been trying to find out how not to hurt me.

My chest fills with warmth that threatens to spill out of my eyes.

I trace the line where his hair meets his temple.

“It’s wonderful. Please don’t stop.”

I slide my hands down the taut muscles of his back as his mouth captures mine, gentle, searching. My tongue strokes his lips. My teeth find the most sensitive parts of his face.

Our bodies are pressed together. I know how intimately he can feel the effect he has on me. I thrill at his body’s reaction.

I’m afloat on a heady wave when he pulls away and leans his forehead against mine.

For the first time in sixteen years, I feel no fear.

All the way in to work, as my heart slows and my skin cools in the solitude of my car, while my lips and my mind still tingle with his presence, there is no fear.

—oOo—

The day has unfolded into its familiar rhythm and I’m immersed in the replay of the energy signature that had taken over the base to slow the self-destruct counter when knuckles rap against my half-open lab door.

“Come in,” I answer before glancing up.

When I do, I look directly into deep brown eyes and a fond lopsided grin.

The memory of him still tingles on my lips.

Heat flushes through me, raising the hair on the back of my neck.

His smile broadens a fraction, forcing my eyes down to my hands.

“ ‘m I interrupting, Carter?”

My head shoots up as his use of my surname. The gentle reminder that we’re at work.

The blood drains to my feet.

“No, sir.”

“K.”

He steps closer, and my heart stutters.

How can he have held me in my bed all night in complete comfort, have tucked his feet between mine this morning, yet make me want to faint when he steps towards me in his uniform?

“You goin’ to Daniel’s back-from-the-dead drinks at O’Malley’s after work?” He asks.

I can’t help the smile that blooms on my face.

Whenever we were on-world and not on a crazy deadline, SG-1 met in O’Malley’s for a beer after work on a Thursday.

This week has felt like an eternity and a single heartbeat at once, but it’s Thursday.

And Daniel is home.

He’d popped in earlier to ask me, and there was no way I was saying no.

“Yeah,” I chuckle. “Did he guilt trip you into going, too?”

“Well. I told him he had to pay for mine to make up for the eyeful I got when I walked into my office on Tuesday.”

He waits for my laughter to die away before he speaks again.

“So, you going straight from here?”

I frown. We always go directly after the 6pm briefing. I don’t know what I’m missing.

“I was planning to Why?”

He takes another step closer.

“Does that mean I get to see you in that blue top again?” His voice is a soft thrum that cuts straight to my bones.

His eyes travel slowly over my hot cheeks and come to rest on my lips.

“Thursday may be my favourite day of the week so far,” he murmurs before he pivots on his heels and saunters away.


	5. Solids or stripes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you prefer solids or stripes?” She asks politely as she bends over the table with her cue, giving the visitor a beautiful view of toned legs and a perfect ass.
> 
> He swallows before hooking his hands trough the belt loops on his jeans. 
> 
> “Oh, I play equally well with all balls, Princess. I don’t need lucky colours.”
> 
> “Did he just call her Princess?” Daniel’s giggle is delighted. “Oh, this is going to be so good.”
> 
> Conversation has all but ceased and Calculator Jock has disappeared to the bar counter, giving us — and all the other regulars — the ability to hear every word as she pulls back the cue.
> 
> “All right. Then I’ll take stripes,” she murmurs, appearing to talk to herself. “I like the way they spin, right before I sink them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some gratuitous Tuesday Bad-Assery. Because Sam.
> 
> Enjoy!  
> xo
> 
> \--oOo--

*Jack*

Daniel, Teal’c and I are already halfway through our first beer when she walks in, shrugging off a black leather jacket to reveal her bare arms and perfect, creamy neckline to the bar’s heated air.

I’m not even a little surprised by the number of heads that turn to take in her progress.

O’Malley’s is SG-1’s local; has been for five or six years. It’s position between the mountain and the civilian town has made it a hangout for many SCG personnell over the years. So a quarter of the owners of the eyes following her, know her as the best mind on the base — her formidable brain only outpaced by her uncanny ability to make everyone she crosses feel valued with a quick, personal word, the flash of a genuine smile.

And more than one of them has fallen deeply for those kind, serious eyes.

As one of the fallen, I should know.

But tonight, she shines brighter than ever before. It may be the startling blue of the shirt that wraps around the base of her neck and plunges down to reveal less than usual for the other women in the room, but still tantalisingly more than she usually shows. Maybe it’s the fact that she seems taller tonight, though I didn’t think her legs could be any longer than they already were.

Perhaps it’s just my body’s flush and prickle at the way her eyes lock on mine as she moves across the room towards us, heedless of anyone else.

It’s like a hit of heroin.

She slides into the empty seat in in our booth, next to me, across from Daniel.

As she acknowledges the beer he ordered her with a tip of her glass, her knee comes to rest lightly against mine.

The evening holds a glow. As much as anything can glow in a beer-soaked, strip-lit pool bar.

We all linger over our drinks and no-one’s surprised when Daniel suggests eating something rather than heading straight home.

“I’m sure Peg won’t mind,” Sam glances at me with fond softness in her eyes, forcing me to grin.

That damn cat has me feeling soft and happy too.

“Nah. It was almost midnight before I got off base one night and he just demanded extra ear-tickles.” I let my knee press slightly more firmly into hers as I turn to answer her.

The butterflies are starting again. I can feel the little shits strapping on their tap shoes.

“Uh.” Daniel frowns meaningfully. “The Pegasus galaxy requires feeding and ear scratches.”

His eyebrows rise to meet his hairline.

“The-our-her cat,” I fumble.

“Oh. THAT Pegasus. The OurHer Cat. Who gets midnight ear-tickles when the commander of the SGC works late.”

One eyebrow drops, the other stays elevated at an angle that screams amusement.

She ducks her head down to hide a blooming, blushing grin.

“Daniel, don’t be ridiculous,” I thunder forward. “Bloody alien took her last cat. And now I’ve got a desk job.” I lift one shoulder nonchalantly. “Carter wanted another cat. I offered to babysit when she’s off-world.”

Her head twists up towards me, eyes stretched wide my lie.

My _white_ lie, I hasten to reassure myself.

She SO wanted Peg.

Once she got to know him.

Out of the corner of my eye, can see a dimple tucking into her cheek as she stares at the menu.

Our booth provides a full view of the pool table. It’s probably no coincidence considering Sam’s skill with the game. On evenings when we stretch our team drinks into dinner, we usually play a few rounds - mainly taking turns to lose against her, unless there’s a cocky player hanging round.

We seem to be in luck tonight. Two thirty-somethings with carefully gymmed muscles dressed like cops or sales reps on a night away from home are buzzing round the pool table, cues in hand, not really playing yet talking louder than needed.

Soon enough, one of them elbows the other in the side and swaggers over to us.

“I hear there’s a bit of a local legend at this-here table.” He addresses Teal’c and me in turn, drawing out the word local for emphasis that he’s from an exotic, far-off postcode.

We keep our faces neutral as he blusters on.

“My friend is twice Georgia state champ. Do you fancy trying your luck against that and livening up this town a bit?”

He’s still glancing between us, occasionally considering Daniel, looking for the supposed champ.

We blink back up at him in unison.

He finally deigns to face the woman at the table.

“And it would _certainly_ liven up my evening to be able to buy the most beautiful woman in the place a drink,” he drawls, his eyes slipping from her face to her cleavage.

Teal’c clears his throat with menace and meaning, and we’re rewarded with a suddenly nervous twitch from the guy who I’ve by now decided sells scientific calculators to accountants. Second hand ones.

After dangling the potentially-murderous-giant-boyfriend look over the poor bastard’s head for another second, T turns to bow at Sam.

“Colonel Carter, it would appear you are being offered both a game of pool and a beverage,” he solemnly intones.

Daniel snorts outright at Calculator Jock’s reaction. Sam hides her smile in a meticulous examination of the bottom of her glass.

I lean over to bump her with my shoulder, all the while keeping my leg pressed to her under the table.

“Go on, Carter,” I say. “You know you want to.”

Her tongue darts out to wet her lips as she turns her head into my neck to breathe a question.

“They’re not…”

“Nah. You’re good.”

One of my pointless talents is photographic recall of faces and names. If these guys had so much as been on a list of contractors to enter the SGC, I would have remembered.

Personally, I think she’s too nice, refusing to show up anyone she works with. She could do with punching several in the balls, frankly. But that’s part of her gentle power.

She unfolds gracefully and takes the pool cue from the Jock without comment.

Heels. She’s wearing heels. How had I missed that? I think while she glides over to shake Pool Champ’s hand. Then she twists back towards our booth, flashing a smile, and I realise I couldn’t bring myself to look away from her lips until now.

The two players approach the table, Pool Champ looking significantly less cocky than his smooth talking colleague.

“Would you like to break?”

Her voice is soft, as always, but it cuts through the background music and chatter. In fact, several Air Force tables are falling silent in anticipation of the evening’s entertainment.

“Oh, no, ladies first,” he smirks.

She nods slowly in response.

“Okay, then. Do you prefer solids or stripes?” She asks politely as she bends over the table with her cue, giving him a beautiful view of toned legs and a perfect ass.

He swallows before hooking his hands trough the belt loops on his jeans.

“Oh, I play equally well with all balls, Princess. I don’t need lucky colours.”

“Did he just call her Princess?” Daniel’s giggle is delighted. “Oh, this is going to be so good.”

Conversation has all but ceased and Calculator Jock has disappeared to the bar counter, giving us — and all the other regulars — the ability to hear every word as she pulls back the cue.

“All right. Then I’ll take stripes,” she murmurs, appearing to talk to herself. “I like the way they spin, right before I sink them.”

With a dry crack, the triangle of balls shatters and a green and white striped ball whizzes towards a corner pocket, pirouetting like a ballerina before dropping neatly out of sight.

DuPre, one of the canteen orderlies, guffaws heartily at the show.

She makes it look like a dance. And while she could clear the table three balls at a time, and I’ve seen her do it when annoyed, she’s making a meal of this game, walking to a different side of the table for each subsequent shot, drawing out the tension the way a kitten tires out a moth.

When just over half her balls are gone, she looks up, seeming to remember herself.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Her face is the picture of innocence. “I’m not being very hospitable to our visitor. Would you like to play?”

Her next shot glances off one of the striped balls, lining it up directly in front of an open pocket where it spins to a halt. The cue ball whispers up behind the black.

It’s not quite a snooker, but it’s a pretty tough shot for Pool Champ to have as his first.

DuPre is shaking with laughter, making little squeaks like Muttley. His girlfriend has to elbow him in the ribs to shut him up.

To his credit, Pool Champ plays a good shot. A triple-cushion shot doesn’t quite sink a solid, but it places the cue ball in a nest of solids.

If I’d looked at that table, I would have said she was snookered.

But I’m not the one looking at the table.

A dead hush now reigns in O’Malley’s. Burt behind the bar even surreptitiously turns down the music.

The only movement is Calculator Jock, returning to his mate, triumphantly holding two beer bottles by their necks in his right hand and a bright pink drink in a martini glass in his left. It looks sweet enough to make the hair on my big toes curl. And it has an umbrella in it.

An um-fucking-brella.

Sam glances up from her contemplation of the table and watches silently as Jock hands Pool Guy one of the beers and pimp-rolls round the table, the pink horror in his left hand stretched towards her.

“Oh, thank you, my favourite.” She steps towards him, then closer again, until she’s past his left hand with the umbrella abomination and almost flush with his chest.

She plucks the beer out of his right hand, tips it at him and his friend and takes a long, slow pull.

“But I’d better stay focused on this game. Your friend’s a good player.”

“Oof,” Daniel mutters as she sets her beer delicately down and returns to the table, “that gut punch actually hurt _me._ How is that idiot with his umbrella still standing?”

Thirty seconds pass in silence as she steps around the table.

When she looks up, it’s with a dazzling smile aimed at Dupre and his companion.

“Jackie, would you mind if I borrowed John for a bit of help with this next shot?”

The orderly just about levitates out of his seat, and murmurs of anticipation travel through the tables.

She’s a killer player, sharp and efficient. But Carter’s trick shots are the ones we’re here for. The ones that take seven precise strikes to to work a miracle.

“Oh, God,” I mutter. “We’re going to have that infernal blue jello at lunch every day for a month.”

“There is always fluid salad as an alternative, General O’Neill.” Teal’c rumbles.

“Gee, thanks, T,” I snort and turn back to the table.

Carter’s got DuPre standing next to her. Her eyes are theatrically narrowed.

“Move your left index finger just a breath to the left, please John. The right hand is perfect. That’s it. Thank you.”

She steps away from him, placing herself directly across from me.

She leans forward over her cue. Blue eyes, a blue shirt, curves I shouldn’t know the feel of but do, focus completely on me.

“General.” She doesn’t have to raise her voice at all for it to carry to us in the hush.

“Would you mind not moving, just for this shot? Your glass is the perfect mark.”

“You got it.”

My mouth forms the words, but no sound escapes.

Her cue eases back and cracks forward.

The cue ball shoots towards us, careening back off the cushion to narrowly miss DuPre’s right hand on its mark. It glances off one of her balls, marking her safe, but continues on, the momentum nudging a path between two solid balls and easing her second-to-last striped ball into the middle pocket as it slides past.

The black seems to take on a life of its own, travelling without me having noticed the moment she hit it. Slowly, it travels towards DuPre’s left index finger on the cushion, touches the baize and rolls to a stop in front of the open pocket that would have been the easiest target for Pool Guy had he planned to finally sink one of his balls.

DuPre lets out a whoop and holds up a slab of a hand for a high five.

The cue ball is lined up perfectly between the last striped ball and the black, clear pockets waiting for both.

She grins broadly as she pats her palm into his.

“Jack.” Daniel’s lips are quirked into a dimpled grin on one side.

He gestures at the corner of his mouth.

“You’ve got a bit of drool. Right there.”

With a huff and an eye-roll I turn away from her, though I wish I could watch her final shots.

Instead, the archaeologist pins me across the table.

“Seriously. You share a _cat_ and still you refuse to think she feels anything?”

“Daniel.”

My warning grumble falls on deaf ears.

“I know what you say every time, Jack. Her career, not wanting to push her, how bad it would look for her if someone got the wrong idea.”

He folds his arms with an exasperated sigh.

“Honestly. You’re base commander. You could clear up any wrong ideas. What the hell is stopping you? And if you tell me it’s respect for Pete, I will actually hit you. I don’t care if you’re my boss.”

“It’s not Pete.” I mumble at my hands.

How do I tell him that I’ve done it? That I’ve fallen so deep and that she caught me, still catches me, every time she looks at me and trusts me with her heart?

Daniel’s hand closes on my wrist.

“Just tell her how you feel, Jack. The worst she can say is no.”

The music comes back on amid cheers and rounds of applause.

As the server brings out our plates, I escape to the bar to get us fresh beers. And two more ridiculous pink drinks with umbrellas for Calculator Jock and Pool Champ.

It’s the least I can do to make them feel welcome in our humble town.

—oOo—

We say our goodbyes in the parking lot, the cool Autumn air welcome after the steak and beer and the flush of her closeness.

Daniel and T walk towards their cars and she hangs back.

She wets her lips with her tongue.

“D’you, um…” Her fingers tangle into each other in the lamplight.

“Would you have time to come … see Peg?”

Butterflies fling themselves around in my stomach.

“I’ll follow you,” I say simply.

Daniel’s words turn circles in my head all the way to her house.

We haven’t discussed this. Not really.

We’ve talked about love, and trust, and sex.

But not about life.

He’s right. I need to face the cliff-edge of my fear and talk to her.

But when her front door closes behind us, her body presses against me, hungry lips dragging over the rough line of my jaw, sharp teeth nipping at the skin of my neck, until the world around me is fire and ice.

“I’ll feed the cat,” she whispers hoarsely between kisses, her hands pulling my hips into her.

“And then, Jack, take me to bed.”


	6. Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doubt darkens her eyes.
> 
> “Don’t you want to?”
> 
> And I want her back. I want back the woman who kicked ass at pool and left macho men drinking pink shit with umbrellas. I want her always to have that glint of triumph in her eyes, the confidence with which she pressed herself against me the second we walked through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A moment of love and care that took me a while to put into words.
> 
> I hope it finds its way to your heart xo
> 
> \--oOo--

*Jack*

I planned to talk.

I want to tell her more than just I love you.

I want to tell her we have time.

Her kiss sets my skin on fire, but nothing is worth hurting her.

“Sam.”

I try to pull away, despite the ache her absence leaves in my chest.

Doubt darkens her eyes.

“Don’t you want to?”

And I want her back. I want back the woman who kicked ass at pool and left macho men drinking pink shit with umbrellas. I want her always to have that glint of triumph in her eyes, the confidence with which she pressed herself against me the second we walked through the door.

A thought forms in my mind.

I scrape my fingers through her hair, run my tongue along the shell of her ear.

“I fucking want you. But Sam. You’re in control. You lead. I follow.”

Her smile is slow but searing.

Her hips edge closer to me.

“I’m in control?” She purrs.

For once, I’m grateful that she can feel every nuance of my body’s response.

Her mouth moves next to my ear.

“Does that include me telling you to feed the cat?”

I can’t stop my laughter, no matter how hard I try.

“It’s a bloody good thing you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met,” I grumble as I stalk to the kitchen, followed by a cat whose meows have grown hoarse with anticipation.

“You and me both, little buddy,” I whisper as I grab his kibble from the cupboard. “You and me both.”

She pivots on bare feet as I follow her down the passage, just out of reach, dancing out of her clothes. By the time we reach her bedroom, expanses of creamy skin invite me to touch.

But I set these rules.

I’ll follow them.

And she’s playing me like a game of pool, the same focus glinting in her eyes.

Her lips whisper along my throat while she undresses me, chuckling softly at my groans, yet never getting closer.

I’m pulsing with need by the time she pulls me into her, finally letting me slake my thirst on her mouth, her neck, her shoulders.

She pushes me onto the bed, closes her lips around the length of my erection.

I want to slow her. I don’t want her to feel she owes me this.

But I can’t back out of letting her lead. Not now.

And her tongue teases sounds out of me I can’t control.

All I can do is stop fighting.

I lace my fingers through the soft curls at the base of her skull.

Her eyes look up at me.

Fantasy clashes with reality and rushes through me in a wave of ecstacy that crashes to release.

I drift back into myself with her body against my chest.

I let my hands travel the length of her spine and she settles in closer.

“God, you feel good in my arms,” I whisper.

A tender smile is my reward.

All the tension is gone from her eyes.

My hands slip lower, take in the soft curve of her butt, the shape of her thighs.

She sighs, the breath raising goosebumps on my chest.

I close my eyes and chart her shoulders with my lips.

My fingertips rise to find the peaks of her hipbones, dip to the hollow of her belly, trace the undulation of her ribs.

Her breathing matches the rhythm of my tongue on the swell of her breasts.

It only takes the slightest pressure for her to roll onto her back. Even here, our bodies move in unison. We almost hear each other’s thoughts.

“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper into the crook of her arm.

I expect the stiffening that always comes after I compliment her work, but she pulls me gently closer.

My tongue tastes the soft fold inside her elbow, feels the veins rising on her delicate wrist.

I kiss her fingertips.

Nothing exists apart from her body and her breath.

I shift lower, finding her belly button with my tongue.

Her soft giggle is nervous.

My eyes flash open.

The line of her lips is tight.

My stomach fills with bitter brown stones at her pain. I’ve pushed her too far.

I lace the fingers of my left hand through hers, rise up to press my lips to her mouth.

I hold her close to me while her breathing slows.

“Sam,” I breathe into the silence when her heart has slowed.

“You are enough. You will always be enough. You know that, don’t you?”

Her free arm wraps around my back.

She’s been silent for so long, I think she’s sleeping when she shifts under me, opening her legs, bringing our interlaced fingers to the edge of the warmth between her thighs.

Her eyes hold darkness I can’t decode, but also a peace I see in her too seldom. The calm of a decision made without regret.

“I trust you, Jack,” she says simply.

The butterflies in my gut thunder back into motion, but this time I welcome their arrival.

_Fear is good,_ my fifth grade baseball coach had said to me. _Fear means you care too much to lose._

I slide my thigh between her legs. My eyes drift shut as our kiss deepens and she moves against me, hesitant at first, then slowly with more pressure.

I thrill at the heat growing in her lips, the moisture I can feel against my thigh.

I cup her butt and raise her hips, angling her closer. A breathy whimper escapes her and I freeze.

“Yes.” She licks her lips. “Please.”

I keep my hands on the curve of her butt, tracking every tremor and shiver of pleasure with bubbles of joy, as my lips drift lower, finding the tight buds of her nipples, marvelling at the soft heaviness of her breasts, the delicate tautness of her belly.

I dip my tongue into the the slick heat of her folds and she groans and arches into my mouth, tangling her fingers through my hair, pulling me on to her.

I dip my tongue lower, circling her entrance, every movement slower than my racing pulse, gentler than the movement of her hips.

My fingertips slip to her clit, run it between my fingers and my thumb.

A strangled cry escapes her. Again, I freeze, a deer in hunter’s headlights.

“God, please don’t stop!” She moans.

Relief lifts my heart as her rhythm falters, turns into incoherent sounds of breath and pleasure, her hips thrusting hard against my hands, my mouth.

I lift her higher and enter her with my tongue.

Her cry of release swells my heart.

Gentle against her urgent movements, I move inside her, caressing her as she crests and slows.

When she shudders into softness under me, I pull away with regret. I don’t want this perfect moment to end.

But I want to hold her in the aftermath of her pleasure, the way she held me.

We press our palms flat on each other’s backs, our faces into each other’s necks, savouring every inch of touching skin as her heart slows.

The first giggle that shakes her takes me by surprise.

It comes again, a rolling, helpless laughter that holds her breath hostage and makes her eyes water.

“You know,” she hiccoughs between gales of laughter. “You know, if you’d have just swaggered into my lab six months after we met and told me you could make me come so hard I’d forget my name, you would have saved us both so much heartache!”

She gives in to another wave of hysterical laughter, clinging to me like a life raft against the storm of emotion.

Six months after we met, we’d run into Jonas Fucking Hanson off-world.

Helpness blackness crowds into my vision.

Her chest heaves harder and harder, her breath growing to shuddering gulps, her arms grasping me so tightly I struggle to breathe.

Against my chest, I feel the wet sting of tears.

“Sam, Carter, hey.”

I don’t know what to say.

I don’t know how to fix this.

Her shaking dissolves into sobs that wrack her entire being, that bring tears to my eyes and impotent rage to my heart.

“Talk to me, Sam. Please,” I whisper into her hair. “Does it hurt? Are you in pain?”

She shakes her head, gulping in air.

“Nothing hurts. Nothing hurts. I feel so good.”

She rises to meet my eyes, blue eyes spilling tears. Her mouth trembles under the weight of her sadness and she buries her head in my neck before she speaks again.

“I didn’t know I could feel this way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, unicorns, this is a different story to most for me.
> 
> And without any obligation, I'd really value your feedback on one particular aspect of this scene, if you feel moved to.
> 
> I tried not to be heavy-handed about it, because I wanted this to be a love scene and not a biology lesson; but Jack avoided penetration with anything other than his tongue as a way to be certain that he wouldn't trigger Sam's dyspareunia.
> 
> Did you pick up on it? Did it work? Would being more obvious about his train of thought have been better? Or would it have made the scene less sexy?
> 
> As you may know by now, this story is the wireframe for an OC novel. And I don't want to be preachy, but I DO want to write this novel in a way that will allow women with dyspareunia and their partners feel positive, and hopeful, and sexy after reading it.
> 
> And neither over-explaining nor being too euphemistic will achieve that.
> 
> If you don't feel comfortable chatting about this in the comments, you can also reach me in DMs on Twitter (@PensiveVet) or Tumblr (@Rhinohill)
> 
> Thank you so much.  
> xo


	7. Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's 2am.  
> Jack is asleep in her arms after a moment of magic.  
> And Sam's past comes back to haunt her in the way it can only in the silence of a lonely night.
> 
> \--oOo--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of Pegasus II is written from Jack's point of view, but after the previous chapter, @Becpea, @Fanficlover1 and a few others asked to hear Sam's thoughts in the aftermath.
> 
> So here they are, warts and all.
> 
> This chapter deals with coercive control and how it can damage people. Sam speaks from a place of her own damage, and like so many of us who are strong enough to survive, she sees herself as responsible and weak.
> 
> Writing it has helped take some of the poison from my own seventeen-year-old soul, so thank you to all of you who walk the path of my writing with me. Without your support, I would not have had the courage to do this.
> 
> May I make a suggestion as someone who feels a little vulnerable right now? If reading about damage and control and difficult relationships triggers you, then hang on a day and read this chapter and chapter 8 as a pair.  
> Chapter 8 is sweet and fluffy and FILLED with Jack and Peg goodness (I couldn't keep you waiting too long, @M+Barr!)
> 
> And if you worry that this is a chapter that will turn a work you've enjoyed into something that will trigger unsafe memories, then skip chapter 7 altogether.  
> I've specifically written it so that you can read straight from chapter 6 to chapter 8 without missing any part of the story.
> 
> We heal in our own ways.  
> Never apologise for choosing to say no to something that makes you feel unsafe.  
> You are precious.  
> xo
> 
> \--oOo--

*Sam*

I’m lucky.

The euphoria lasts for hours before reality shoves its cold hand into my mouth and yanks me back into the past.

Jack is curled into me, soft with sleep. He doesn’t feel me becoming seventeen again.

I’d pushed myself onto his mouth, lost to every sensation except pleasure.

_My slutty Samantha._

My skin breaks into gooseflesh at the echo in my head.

I’d deserved that moniker tonight.

Shame rolls over me, grey and clammy.

I met Jonas Hanson when I was seventeen, fresh-faced and brand new to the gifted recruits programme.

The day his eyes singled me out of the crowd, I thought my heart would stop.

I loved him with a power that took my breath away.

The slightest hint of his approval would send me soaring, only to crash when I did something stupid or childish and he turned back to his friends.

I clung to every detail he let slip about what he liked in a woman.

I stopped wearing cardigans after the time he called them frumpy.

I didn’t wear lipstick because he thought the marks it left on glasses looked low class.

I laughed at every one of his jokes, even when they were at my expense.

Especially when they were at my expense.

Because nobody liked a high-and-mighty princess, he was certain to remind me.

When he occasionally invited me for drinks with his friends, I would walk on air. They were recruits, after all. And he was being fast-tracked to captain. I was only a cadet.

That was until the night his friend challenged me to a game of pool.

The game was the one thing I loved more than Jonas. The only thing I thought at the time I ever could.

The combination of calculation, power and control it demanded mesmerised me.

And his friend was a good player, but not as good as I was.

Jonas’s eyes had been cold as he raised his glass to me after I had sunk the black.

For the rest of the evening, his jokes had been louder, the slaps on my ass harder. We’d stayed until I’d missed my curfew and his friends had drifted into the night.

Yet he didn’t meet my eyes until we stepped into the parking lot.

“So, you like playing with the boys?”

His hand on my breast had pushed me backwards, pinning me to his car.

“You like showing them how good you are? You like bending over the table so everyone can see your tits?”

His fingers had dug into my breast, silencing my protest.

His other hand reached into my jeans, dug under my panties, thrust into my cleft.

“Does it make you wet to play with the boys, my slutty Samantha?”

Panic had thundered through my ears, turning my bones to water.

Behind us, the bar door had swung open, spilling drunken couples into the night.

Jonas had leaned his lips to my ear so it looked as if we were caught in a passionate embrace.

“Say it.” His finger had pushed deeper. “Say it makes you wet.”

“It makes me wet,” I’d squeaked, disembodied by confusion, love and fear.

I’d felt his erection pressing into me through his trousers.

“Now look what you’ve done,” he’d growled. “You’ve made me want you.”

When the communal dorm phone rang the following afternoon and the girl who answered called my name, my heart had tripped over a tangled mess of joy and dread.

“Hello my sweet slut,” Jonas had purred into the receiver. “Are you wet for me?”

I’d started it, he reminded me every time I tried to talk about love instead of lust. I'd started it by showing myself off in a bar like that, just to make him want me.

And I did.

I wanted him to want me.

I craved his love, even when his words wrapped me in shame.

After all, he was right. I had leaned over the pool table to make my shots, knowing it would show my cleavage.

Maybe, probably, partly at least, I’d done it because I’d wanted him to notice.

His friend stopped coming to the bar. So did others.

Mine were never invited.

By the night of my eighteenth birthday, it was only the two of us.

He’d driven me to the river to show me the stars. He’d given me a pendant in the shape of a heart and asked me if I wanted him as much as he wanted me. Because he loved me, he said. And he had another present for me.

I can only blame myself.

He asked me if I wanted to, and I could have said no.

But a little silver pendant in the shape of a heart dangled around my neck, and he had said he loved me.

And I wanted to hear that. Over and over.

I only have myself to blame. I said yes when I could have said no.

I told him how wet he made me, even when the bile rose in my throat at the word.

I gasped “I love you” to hide the pain of him pushing into me.

I flushed and opened my legs to him when he called me _my slutty Samantha._

When Jonas left me five years later, I couldn’t breathe.

Living without him was like living with a deep stab wound in my belly.

I looked at my life and saw only dull sepia.

I had no friends anymore. They were all his. And even though several reached out to me, I wouldn’t let them close. I didn’t deserve their kindness. Even Jonas had tired of me, because I was so boring, so dull, so booksmart, such a nerd, so lifeless in bed.

A lifeless slut. I had never managed to figure out how I was broken enough to be both at once.

I had healed, in time.

Learnt to live around the stab wound in my stomach.

Made friends with other nerds who didn’t need me to be classy or sexy or to know my place.

I’d turned my booksmarts into a love for the stars, my pain into laser-focus in battle, my shame into compassion for the oppressed.

When SG-1 and I ran into Jonas again, I expected to crumble, but instead I stood firm.

I reached into the wound he’d left in my gut and found the reason it hurt so much was because the blade that made it, the blade that was Jonas Hanson’s love, was poisoned with his need to break other people down so that he could control them.

That was the day I had learnt to be proud again.

But one thing persisted.

I could never feel the hot rush of desire without getting ensnared in the web of shame that his voice in my head evoked.

_Slutty Samantha._

And every relationship I attempted folded like a house of cards, because I couldn’t face that pain.

It had taken the Tok’Ra armbands and a night at O’Malley’s to flood me with feelings more powerful than my shame.

Wearing those bands was like living non-stop in the first flush of love. Everything was bright, and sharp, and beautiful.

I felt beautiful.

And I’d enjoyed demolishing those jocks at the table like I hadn't loved a game of pool in decades.

I had been lining up a particularly complicated shot when my eyes, at table level, had drawn a line to the opposite cushion and locked with his.

His face was filled with open admiration, loud enough for anyone in the bar to read.

My heart had been caught in amber.

Slowly, in the sudden silence that stretched between us in the noisy room, he’d lifted one corner of his mouth into a shy smile.

I’d marked his lips for the spot on the cushion where I needed to point the final bounce of the cue ball, trusting him without asking not to move.

He’d held his position.

The shot had been flawless.

And when I’d slid back into our booth, his fingers had lingered on my shoulder, searing heat right through the jacket and my skin, lighting a liquid fire in my groin that burnt pure and sweet and untethered by shame.

“Fuck me, Carter, that was a thing of beauty,” he’d whispered.

That night, in our sleeping quarters on the base, I’d locked myself in the bathroom and let my fingers coax the fire to release, the memory of his eyes louder than Jonas’s voice, the featherlight press of his hand on my shoulder more powerful than the memory of Jonas’s hand inside my jeans.

It had taken the armbands for me to feel desire, but fear still froze me when I finally tried to have sex with Pete.

He had tried.

It had been gentle and slow and fumbling, as if we were both teenagers figuring out how to do this for the first time.

As if I was seventeen again.

And then Jonas’s voice had thundered back in and the pain had clamped down.

Pete had put up with all of that. With all of the nights following when he’d tried again and I’d fobbed him off with excuses.

He’d wanted to try again, to help me work through it, but the second he stopped being careful, the moment his pleasure took away his inhibitions, I was thrust back into the past and I couldn’t stop the panic and the pain.

I should have ended it sooner.

I should have left him with grace, before my bed had become a war zone and my fear had sparked the inevitable jealousy.

I felt lousy about the way I’d treated him. I just wanted so badly to love someone when the person I ached for in my soul was out of reach.

Jack was different.

He set me on fire with every gentle kiss.

When he looked at me, I felt beautiful, and powerful, and sexy.

His touch made me forget my fear.

When his tongue had tasted my arousal, I’d wanted to take him so deep inside me that he could know every secret.

Even the memory of his hands, firm under my hips, the scratch of his cheek on the sensitive skin of my thigh, the remembered sound of my whimpers of pleasure, of my hands holding his head closer, pressing him into me, shot me through with slick, wet want.

_My Slutty Samantha._

Jonas’s taunt grabs me in the darkness, swings me away from Jack’s care.

Tonight, I finally proved Jonas right.

I threw myself at the man whose respect I live for, after two beers and a game of pool.

I stripped myself naked and pushed myself on him. I writhed under him like the slut Jonas always told me I was.

The darkness reaches long fingers down my throat and chokes off my air supply. I can feel the panic rising, spinning me faster and faster as the world slows to a crawl.

I need to get away, to outrun the darkness.

Jack stirs in his sleep, stretches the length of his body against me.

I can’t wake him. Not like this. If he sees my panic, he’ll ask me to explain.

For the first time since the age of twelve, I cling on to the words of the psychologist who saw me after my mother died and try to believe their truth.

“The only way to the other side of these feelings is through the middle, Sammy,” she had said, her eyes owlish behind her giant purple glasses. “Sit with the feeling as if it is a scared friend. Give it space to be. And you’ll see. It will leave when it’s had its time.”

While the world reels around me, while my chest aches for breath and my heartbeat deafens me, I close my eyes and feel the burning shame.

It claws into my lungs until all that is left is revulsion. Revulsion and the feeling of arms around me. Rocking me. Gentle, loving arms.

And a whisper of a voice.

“Wake up, Sam. Wake up, my love. You’re having a bad dream.”

His hands stroke my hair, draw slow circles on my shaking back.

His words are round with sleep.

“You’re safe,” he whispers. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I love you. You’re safe. It was only a dream.”

He’s asleep again before the adrenaline has worked its way out of my system, my head tucked into the crook of his neck, his hands protective on my back.

My love for him flares in my chest, and the darkness shrinks back to its corner.

Maybe this is the truth the psychologist wanted me to find.

Maybe she was right, after all.

I don’t think my self-loathing, the blame I place on myself for letting Jonas turn me into who I am, will ever truly leave me.

But if I hold on to my love for him, if I hang on to the way he makes me feel, my body _and_ my heart, then maybe the light can keep the darkness at bay.

I slide my palm over Jack’s heart, and he sighs and rolls into me, hooking his foot around my calf to pull me closer.

And with the rhythm of his heartbeat as my anchor, I drift into peace.


	8. Two minutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee in bed. With Jack. And cream.  
> And a cat.  
> xo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapter that will take only two minutes to read, and that I hope will make you smile before the rest of your day.
> 
> Whether you're one of the many readers who gently reminded me that you're here FOR THE CAT 😆 or whether you were silently patient with my previous angst festival, thank you for sticking around! You are unicorns xo
> 
> \--oOo--

*Jack*

My favourite time of the day is two minutes before the alarm.

It’s the only moment when nothing has yet gone wrong.

In the silence before the world knows I’m awake, before it can make demands on me, I can sometimes capture the memory of hope, believe that Charlie will come careening through the door, or that I’ll feel that same love for someone else one day.

This morning, hope has come to me.

Hope smells like lavender and honey. It has soft blonde curls that spread across my right shoulder and a perfect nose that nuzzles into my chest in sleep.

It feels like a compact, furry body tucked into my left arm, purring contentedly when I flex my fingers around it, stretching lazy front paws up my torso, flexing lethal claws before grinning a smug cat grin and kneading my exposed shoulder—

“Ow, crap, Peg, Aa!”

Blue eyes flash open on my right shoulder as the claws of our cat’s other paw embed themselves in my flesh.

“Goddamnit, I am not your scratch pad!”

Pegasus releases a chirp that tells me precisely how little value he attaches to my opinion on the topic.

A stifled giggle accompanies firm fingers that prize the claws out of my smarting skin.

No matter how indignant I want to be, I can’t hide the smile her laughter brings.

“Not funny,” I grumble for good measure. But my arm pulls her back to me.

I place a soft kiss on her temple.

“He’s not getting any kisses from me this morning, just for the record.”

She lifts her head, rests her chin on me.

Her smile is warm, but her eyes hold shadows that I long to chase away.

“Good,” she murmurs. “I’d hate to be jealous of my own cat.”

She slips out of my arms and rises, an endless early-morning perfection of long limbs and graceful curves.

“Come on, delinquent cat,” she calls as she rises, slipping my shirt over her shoulders, a gesture of belonging that turns my blood to liquid gold. “Let’s go get dad some coffee and you some breakfast, before you decide his shoulder is tasty enough to snack on.”

He trots off behind her with his tail held triumphantly aloft, and returns looking just as pleased when she wanders back in holding two steaming mugs and slides back into bed next to me.

As soon as we’re settled with our backs against the pillows and our knees drawn up, he crawls into the hollow left under my legs and starts a full-body clean with lip-smacking enthusiasm.

“He likes having you around.”

She speaks while eyeing one back paw stuck heavenward, air-guitar style, as he leans his back against my thigh and stretches his neck to lick the gaps between his toes.

I tuck my foot between her ankles.

“I hope he’s not the only one. Because he’s great, and all. But he’s not my primary reason for being here.”

She smiles into her coffee.

“He’s not,” she answers softly.

But it worries me that she won’t meet my eyes.

We drink our coffee in silence. The moment is as gentle as the cream. My growing worry is as acid-bitter as the dark beans.

“Sam,” I begin, when my heart can take no more of her guarded quiet.

I wrap my arm around her waist, over my shirt, and feel her reassuring warmth under my coffee-hot hand.

She twists her head to see me out of the corner of her eye, but doesn’t speak.

And I can’t begin to understand her pain. All I can do is tell her how I feel.

“Sam, last night was one of the most beautiful nights of my life.”

Her face turns further towards me, doubt and questions clashing in the pull of her mouth.

I force myself on.

“Thank you,” I say. “For trusting me.”

Her shoulders drop with a sudden release of tension.

She looks at me as if I’m a mirage.

Slowly, she reaches her fingertips to my cheek, a featherlight touch like Pegasus gives. Like she wants to make sure I’m really here.

Her lips are soft on mine, her kiss slow and bittersweet.

“Sam, are you all right?” I can’t help asking when she pulls away and rests her forehead on my shoulder.

Her voice is pitched lower than usual when she speaks, her words rumbling through me and making me want to pick her up and shelter her from the world.

“I’m better than I’ve been in years,” she says.


	9. Useless naked cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, Carter. Wanna bring Peg to meet Daniel tonight?”
> 
> “Oh. Uh. Sure.”
> 
> I’m not sure what I expected, but whatever it was, I still feel a little strange to have my boss — my lover, my BOSS — ask my cat out on a date.
> 
> \--oOo--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh huh.  
> It's time for THAT conversation...
> 
> \--oOo--

*Sam*

“Is it just me, or is everyone smiling more since the last time I died?”

Daniel does his best to sound disgruntled as he and his lunch tray slide into the empty seat at the commissary table.

Under the table, Jack’s knee touches mine; the slightest hint of pressure, so light people who happen to see it would believe it’s only an accidental brushing of clothing.

My face splits into a grin.

“Well, we’re happy to see you back, Daniel!” I try to cover the way my heart soars by speaking first.

Teal’c inclines his head, eyeing us each in turn.

“There are many reasons to be joyful, Daniel Jackson. The world being saved from imminent disaster, for instance. Blue jello for dessert. Having had the run of your work space while you were gone.”

He takes a mountainous mouthful of carrots and peas to hide his blooming smirk at Daniel’s shocked face.

Jack contemplates the team mate we all want to hug to death with a serious expression.

“Personally, I’m just relieved you’re dressed today,” he opines.

At my snort, he turns to me and beams through a mouthful of food.

A jolt of pure heat pins me to my seat as I stare at his lips and the stubble barely shadowing his chin. Stubble that dragged ecstasy along my inner thighs last night. Lips that made me forget everything except the feeling of his mouth, his hands, the exquisite rush.

My fork clatters from numb fingers onto my plate.

For a moment, his knee presses more firmly into mine, then his chair scrapes on the echoing floor.

“Well, kids, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got to sign off the air conditioning service budget.”

He pauses, his hand lingering on the back of the flimsy metal chair.

“Say, if you don’t have plans, you could come to mine tonight? Slap some steaks on the grill?”

“Team night.” Daniel’s eyes crinkle above his smile. “I’d love that. I’ll even wear clothes.”

I’m expecting Daniel when the knock comes at my lab door around four in the afternoon.

“Come!” I yell, not even bothering with the second word. A particularly awkwardly placed bolt on the naquidah reactor I’m rebuilding keeps my attention while my visitor mooches in.

When it finally slips into place, I straighten with a puff of breath.

And look straight into the mouth that makes my stomach turn backflips at the memory of it on my neck.

“…sir,” I stutter. “Sorry. Little… bolt…” my words fizzle out.

“Yes,” he drawls. “Very bolty little bolt.”

His lips tweak into a half smile and he tucks his hands into the pockets of his BDUs.

I wipe my fingers slowly to remove some of the grease staining them, and gather my composure.

The silence stretches like taffy in the sun.

“So, Carter. Wanna bring Peg to meet Daniel tonight?”

“Oh. Uh. Sure.”

I’m not sure what I expected, but whatever it was, I still feel a little strange to have my boss _— my lover, my boss —_ ask my cat out on a date.

Reality saves me from the twisted paths my brain wants to rush down.

“I’m just not sure he’d be in a good mood after the car trip over. That may not make the best first impression on Daniel, sir.”

He snorts.

“Daniel should be worried about impressing him, not the other way around. But I can drive ya over.”

He throws it out so nonchalantly.

Drive me over.

From my place.

To his.

As if he noticed the way my stomach clenched with confused excitement at his casual offer, he shrugs and steps away from the desk.

“Daniel and T can keep the grill going while I come fetch the two of you. Besides. I got a thing I wanna try. If it works, you’ll be able to drive him round by yourself in future.”

He paces back over to the door while he speaks, mercifully making it possible for me to hide the flush that has spread across my cheeks at the thought of him picking me up on a Friday night and driving me to his house. _Mercifully, or deliberately kindly, Sam?_

He’s already halfway out the door when he speaks again, tugging my eyes up to see his soft smile.

“Six thirty okay for you?”

He barely waits for my nod before he’s gone.

—oOo—

I spend the balance of the day on simple tasks that take infuriatingly long. Long enough to have me rushing to shower, change and pack Peg’s food and water bowl before our designated pick-up time.

Our cat has the patience of a saint; simply watching me from his perch on the kitchen island while I weigh out his dinner and pour it into a travel container rather than into his dish, at the same time trying to dry my damp hair with a towel in one hand.

He pads behind me to the bedroom and hunkers down on the pillow that must still hold Jack’s scent, blinking both golden eyes at me as I storm around with mascara and perfume.

I pull three tops out of the wardrobe, settling for a soft charcoal jumper that moulds to my shape without being too tight.

When the other two land in a heap next to him, Peg releases a sigh and wraps his tail neatly around his paws in what I can only imagine to be the cat equivalent of lotus pose.

For a second, the image of him and Teal’c meditating together burns behind my eyelids.

I can’t stop the flood of giggles that engulfs me.

Peg blinks long-sufferingly on.

His good humour retreats the second I take his carrier out of the storage cupboard, however.

His eyes narrow suspiciously and his tail flicks its annoyance.

“I know you don’t like it, Peg,” I sigh. “But look, dad says he has a plan. You should trust him.”

I pause, last night’s memories trapping me in amber.

“I do.” I say softly as his truck’s headlights sweep across my lawn.

Peg just about beats down the door before I can open it and throws himself at the jean-clad legs on the other side.

“Hey, little buddy,” he rumbles as he crouches to unfasten the claws lodged in his trousers and lift him into his arms. “You really should give lessons to the staff at the SGC about the right way to greet me.”

I chuckle.

“I can just see Walter and Siler fighting over which one of them you pick up and cuddle first, sir.”

He grimaces theatrically.

“Hmm. On second thoughts, Peg, let’s keep this our little secret,” he says as his fingertip finds the spot behind the cat’s ear that makes his eyes shut in bliss.

He smells faintly of wood smoke from the barbecue, and I have to fight the urge to step in close and kiss him, to taste the lingering trace of his first beer of the weekend.

“So, Peg, do you want to try a new way to go for a ride? I just need to put you down for a second so I can get mom set up, okay?”

At his mention of the plan he’s made for transporting Pegasus, curiosity overtakes my shyness.

Jack’s knees pop as he stoops to give the cat a smaller distance to cover when he jumps to the floor, then steps close to me with softness in his eyes.

HIs hand traces the line of my cheek and his lips press softly onto mine.

“Hey,” he smiles. “You smell good.”

And the curiosity is all gone, smothered by the taste of him.

I have to stifle a groan when he pulls back and tugs a strangely shaped strip of faded black fabric out of his back pocket.

He stops mid-movement, his eyes focused on the pulse in my throat.

Heat flares in my gut.

And my muscles stiffen with shame as I brace for Jonas’s taunt in my head.

But before it can come, his hand cups my face, gentle as a sunrise.

“I feel ya, Carter,” he whispers. “But if I don’t stop now, I’ll never stop. And Daniel and T will send out a search party.”

His hand slips along my neck, the other coming to meet it at the nape of my neck.

The strip of fabric smells of his skin. It’s a T-shirt, I realise, as he ties one edge into a knot and slides it away from the midline so that it won’t press against my vertebrae.

The cut-up t-shirt hangs like an asymmetrical sack over my chest.

“I’m trying a cat papoose,” he murmurs as he checks the position of the holes he’s cut into the cloth. “Peg may hate it, but it used to calm Charlie down.”

Suddenly, he looks lost.

My heart swells with sorrow for the love he gave a boy who will never be a man.

I fold my hand into his.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” I whisper.

And it _matters_ to me that it should work. For his sake as much as for Peg.

“Wait, let’s get some cheese for when we lift him into it,” I say. “If he gets a really tasty snack the first time he’s in it, it may give him good associations.”

And so we find ourselves bathed in the bright light of the kitchen, me dangling a slice of Monterey Jack under my left ear like a yellow earring while Jack lifts a confused mass of muscles and fur into the sling on my chest.

I’m so focused on keeping the cat’s mouth occupied with my cheese that I only notice the purpose of Jack’s movements at my waist when the cat gives my neck a contented nuzzle and lets out a roar of a purr. Peg’s butt is cradled perfectly in the bottom of the material, the tips of his back paws sticking up and out. His tail swishes across my hips from a custom made hole.

Pegasus adjusts his front paws around my neck, shuffles his hips one last time, and rasps his tongue once up my jugular before closing his eyes with happiness.

My arms encircle him protectively.

I feel the urge to whisper, even though he’s a middle aged cat and not an infant.

“You did it, dad. I think we’re ready to go.”

The brightness of Jack’s smile lingers like a kiss on my skin as we walk out to his truck.

We’re halfway to his house when he glances over at me.

“It suits you, ya know?” He comments.

“What, ginger fur on my chest?” I shoot back.

He chuckles drily, but his eyes are serious the next time he looks over.

“Have you ever wanted kids?”

My arms tighten around the warm little body purring on my chest.

 _YES! God, yes!_ I want to scream.

And more quietly, I want to tell him that I’ve wanted to be a mother all my life. But never with any of the men I dated.

Never with anyone until I met him.

But we first kissed five days ago.

And I don’t even know I’ll ever be able to keep him interested enough in me to _try_ the fear-soaked, painful dance that is conception.

And he’s been a father.

“Sam?” His voice interrupts my thoughts.

Panicked, I reach for humour.

“Uh, dad. Careful what you say about mom wanting other children while my fangs are right next to her jugular.”

I hope my voice doesn’t sound as tense as it feels.

“Nah, Pegleg. You’ll always be the king of the mansion. I’m talking about—“ he lifts one hand off the steering wheel to gesture a circle, “—ya know. The loud kind without fur.”

I lick my lips.

The darkness gives me courage I would normally lack.

“Ah, you mean the useless kind that can’t even lick its own butt clean? You know, dad, I don’t understand why _anyone_ would want a kid like that.”

I swallow, willing the courage to keep flowing as I push on.

“But mom wants to know how you feel about it, too.”

I notice the way his left knee tenses, the way his hands wring around the edge of the steering wheel before he answers.

“Being a dad to a useless naked cat for a few years was the most meaningful thing in my life. Peg.”

The world spins around me.

Blood sings in my ears.

“Well, in that case, I’d be willing to put up with one of them in our house. As long as I’m allowed to scratch it if it pulls my tail or eats my food.”

Jack’s face folds around his smile in the slow, repeated beat of streetlights.

“Good to know, Peg,” he answers solemnly.

He keeps driving, as if the conversation is over.

But there’s more I want to say.

“Say dad? I think I have another condition to impose. If I’m gonna have a useless, naked cat as brother or sister, it needs to be yours.”

Out of the corner ofmy eyes, I can see his throat moving as he swallows.

“Well, Peg. You and I agree on that much at least. But between us, we only have forty nine per cent of the votes on this one. Your mom has the the deciding vote.”

I wish I had Teal’c’s sense of comedic timing. Or Daniel’s capacity for finding the right words.

But I am all there is. I’ll have to be enough.

“Say dad,” I smile, hoping the physical gesture will make me sound less nervous, “I know mom is the astrophysicist in this relationship, but you do know she’s the one talking, right?”

“Smartass.”

The word is lighthearted, but his voice cracks as he says it.

“Jack,” I speak the words through numb lips, “could you pull over for a moment?”

Without hesitation, he indicates and pulls into an unlit driveway.

“Sam,” he begins as the engine’s rumble stops abruptly, “I never want to pressure you. I — that’s not what this is about. I’m sorry, I never meant to push you.”

And I don’t know if it’s the full moon beaming benediction at us, or the surfacing of a truth held far deeper in my soul, but there is no more hesitation when I reach for his hand and press my lips to his knuckles.

“I’m not sorry, Jack. If— when, when…”

Damn it all to hell, talking without Peg as interpreter is terrifying.

I wet my lips with my tongue, and let the words spill straight from my heart.

“I’m terrified of not being good enough. But with you next to me, I want to try.”


	10. How love works

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s funny how love works.
> 
> It makes us strong when the ones we love are weak, even when we wouldn’t be strong on our own.
> 
> \--oOo--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a tiny breath of sweetness at the end of the weekend.
> 
> As a thank you to you, my unicorns, for being who you are.  
> You make the world a better place by being in it.  
> xo
> 
> \--oOo--

*Sam*

It’s funny how love works.

It defies the laws of physics.

We sit in silence for a heartbeat and an hour.

Which is probably about three minutes in earth time.

But our words hold us in a bubble that glistens like soap in the sun.

Neither of us speaks. Neither of us moves until Pegasus squirms against me for freedom.

Following his lead, I stretch the hammock to let him scramble out. When he’s on the seat between us, I open my door and walk to the driver’s side where the man I love waits, his hands clenching and unclenching.

The moonlight sharpens every line of his face, deepens the vulnerability that tugs at his mouth.

And brings me peace. Because it means I’m not alone in my fear.

I run my fingertips along the harshest lines of his frown.

His arms circle my waist and pull me closer.

“That was a big conversation,” I give voice to the jumble of joy and terror rolling through me.

He doesn’t speak, only stares at me with what looks disturbingly like growing dread.

“Jack. Are you okay?”

He twists his eyes away.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” is all he offers in return.

I wait for the worst of the fear to leave his face, then place my palm flat against his cheek and turn it until his eyes meet mine again.

“Why?” I ask.

“I’m not thirty any more, Sam. I don’t even know if I can…”

It’s funny how love works.

It makes us strong when the ones we love are weak, even when we wouldn’t be strong on our own.

“And I don’t know if I can either, because I’ve never been with anyone I wanted to raise a child with. So I’ve never even tried.”

As the words leave my mouth, I recognise their truth.

No matter how fervently my seventeen year old heart believed it could not survive without Jonas,I could never imagine raising a child with him.

In my dreams of motherhood, I had always been alone.

Yet in Jack’s arms, unbidden, images rise of a toddler’s laughter on a Sunday morning. Of the smell of banana pancakes. Of one of us peeking under the bed while the other checks the cupboard to make _triple_ sure there are no monsters anywhere.

The happiest images I know.

But the lines in his face harden again when he speaks.

“I promised myself I would never stand in the way of your career. You’re too good. You need to shine. The world needs you.”

Yes. It’s funny how love works.

Because the certainty that courses through me in this moment is purer than anything I have ever felt.

“And the most important thing I could do for the world, is to give a little part of Jack O’Neill to its future,” I say, before I silence his protest with my lips.


	11. Allergy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From his perch on the bed, our cat swivels amber eyes in Daniel’s direction.
> 
> His tail flicks, a short, sharp whiplash of judgement.
> 
> Rising majestically, he stalks towards the duck being dangled at him.
> 
> Past it, with a single glance.
> 
> Nine pounds of cat pours itself into the small discarded cardboard box that concealed his toy and settles in to lick its butt.
> 
> \--oOo--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ccdsah is almost as tough to please as Pegasus! 🤣  
> I hope this is enough cat for you xo.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone for reading and commenting.
> 
> I LOVE reading your feedback!
> 
> \--oOo--

*Jack*

I could spend the rest of my life right here, kissing her in the sulphur-yellow lamplight on the curb of an anonymous suburban street.

I could, and I fucking swear I would.

The family whose driveway we’re blocking with the tail-end of my truck could call the police on us and still I wouldn’t move.

But she pulls away.

Her tongue wets her lips and she smiles that smile that reminds me of the first perfect snowflake dancing on the breeze outside my bedroom window when I was five.

“We should go,” she quotes me with a smile, “or Daniel and T will send out a search party.”

Her hand stays on my thigh all the way to my place.

And when we round the corner of the house to where the guys will be able to see us, I hang on when she pulls her fingers out of mine.

 _Let them see,_ my heart shouts into the night. _Let them see. You are the thing I’m proudest of. Let them see I love you._

I busy myself getting Peg settled in, showing him his food and water and the litter box we left behind after the night they spent with me.

The team traipses inside to find us, in the end, Daniel holding a cardboard box that rattles and squeaks when he shakes it.

“Hey, Pegasus,” he wheedles. “I’ve heard you’re a discerning furson. I hope you like ducks?”

He opens the box with a flourish and pulls out the origin of the squeak: a multi-coloured furry duck with fluttering tail feathers, three inches long, dangling from a stick and emitting a high-pitched squeak with every jiggle.

From his perch on the bed, our cat swivels amber eyes in Daniel’s direction.

His tail flicks, a short, sharp whiplash of judgement.

Rising majestically, he stalks towards the duck being dangled at him.

Past it, with a single glance.

Nine pounds of cat pours itself into the small discarded cardboard box that concealed his toy and settles in to lick its butt.

“Really?” Daniel asks, as Teal’c turns a snort of laughter into a supremely unconvincing cough.

Pegasus lifts his head from his ablutions, slow-motion blinks both eyes at Daniel, and sneezes theatrically, before bending his head back to his nether regions with lip-smacking relish.

“Oh, come on!” Daniel throws his hands into the air, making the duck dance a squeaky jig. “The guy at the pet shop spent an hour telling me this is the most irresistible toy in the entire state!”

I venture a glance at Sam.

Her arms are clamped over her chest and her mouth is pressed into a thin line that still doesn’t manage to hide her grin.

“Maybe he’s allergic to duck?” She ventures, her voice thick with laughter.

“Ah, I can’t keep watching this show without a beer. Daniel, Carter, ya want one? T, another Coke?” I wander into the kitchen with the taste of her lips still on my tongue.

The others are lounging at the table and I’m turning the steaks on the coals when our cat saunters out, signalling his arrival with a chirpy meow.

Teal’c reaches down to scratch his head as if he’s always been a part of the team.

The ease with which the warrior who has become a brother settles into his presence conjures images of toddlers rushing around our chairs. Toddlers with Charlie’s piercing, quick laughter and her soft blond hair.

I can’t resist a glance in her direction.

She is leaning back in her chair, her left ankle draped over her right knee, watching me with a soft smile.

My heart swells, and my head fills with the urge to gather her to me and tell them she brings light to my days.

But I know she’d want to talk about it first.

I will never jeopardise her career. And though I know the guys would understand — heck, Daniel would finally get off my case about it — I bite my tongue. I want her to be okay with it before we tell them. I don’t want to be the dick who forces her hand.

I take a step back, turning to find refuge gathering cutlery in the kitchen.

A log on the edge of the fire cracks, showering sparks towards the ground.

Like a flash, Peg is under the coals, golden eyes mesmerised.

“Whoa, watch out, Pegasus!”

Daniel is up and out of his seat before the spark-shower dies away, scooping the cat and his outstretched front paw protectively into his arms.

Cat and archaeologist regard each other in the firelight.

The evening falls silent except for the cheerful crackling of the flames.

Peg’s lip twitches. Once. Twice. He scrunches both eyes shut and releases a sneeze so violent it jerks his whole body.

The cat opens his eyes wide and stares in surprised fascination at Daniel’s face.

“Gee, thanks,” Daniel comments drily before turning his back on the fire and putting Peg carefully on the floor, with the cat’s face pointing away from both the flames and him.

Sam’s face splits into a wicked grin.

“Daniel, do you think he’s allergic to… _you?”_

She tries, and fails, to stifle a giggle.

Daniel rolls his eyes.

“Nah, Carter. Maybe just his cologne. Or the smell of ancient books.”

I lean against the door frame, warming to the conversation as Daniel folds his arms across his chest in mock-anger.

“So Peg hasn’t inherited your book-smarts then. Good job, It means I’ll be able to understand him after he turns nine.”

She shakes her head above a dimpled smile, her eyes mimicking Daniel’s heavenward roll.

“I wonder if Peg has enough sense to like fishing more than his mom?” I muse.

“Hey, that’s not fair! I never said I don’t like it!” She blusters.

“Yah, sure, youbetcha,” I shoot back.

“I’ve just … been working on … things, every time you’ve invited me,” she mumbles defensively.

It’s Daniel’s turn to grin at the exchange.

A picture of her, leaning back in her chair, her ankle draped over her knee like just a moment ago, fishing rod in hand, makes my heart leap.

“What you workin’ on tomorrow, Carter?” I ask softly. “Daniel, T and I are goin’ to the cabin for the night. You wanna come give fishing a try?”

I can’t decipher her expression in the flickering orange glow and the reflected porch light. I wish I could reach out and trace the curve of her cheek with my fingers, to see my hands can read her better than my eyes.

When she looks down at her lap, my heart stutters to a fearful halt.

“I don’t think Peg would like a five hour car trip, sir.”

I keep my face blank. Try not to betray the way the prospect of two days with friends has dulled, simply because for one bright moment I thought she may be there, too.

“Sure,” I say in what I hope is a noncommittal tone, turning to head inside.

“Besides,” her voice beings me to a halt, “I think he may scare off those bears in the woods you keep warning us about.”

She pauses, and when she continues, there is hesitancy in her words.

“But I can ask Cass to look after him for the night. She’s been offering to help. If you guys don’t mind me tagging along?”

It’s torture not picking her up and swinging her around.

Torture not to curl my fingers around hers when she hands me the serving dish and our hands brush.

It takes all my willpower not to kiss her when I finish tucking Peg into his little papoose on her chest for their trip home with Daniel and Teal’c.

I hold her eyes longer than a CO should, I know it.

I don’t give a shit what the others think.

She’s the one who moves, picking up Peg’s paw and waving it at me in the way I usually do.

“G’night, dad,” she says as Teal’c opens the door of his Jeep for her. “Enjoy teaching mom to fish. Oh, and thanks for that fat from your steak that you dropped on the floor for me when mom wasn’t looking. It was delicious and I promise I’ll never tell her.”

“Smartass,” I grumble.

But my smile still hasn’t faded by the time I drift to sleep with visions of the cabin behind my closed eyes.


	12. Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s like I never had to see it in your eyes  
> Or feel it  
> I could tell when you smile.
> 
> It’s like I didn’t need to say anything   
> Or do much  
> I could tell when you smile.
> 
> All of the sub-atomic pieces  
> Come together  
> And unfold themselves  
> In a second  
> When you smile.
> 
> \- The Flaming Lips

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read to relax.  
> I read to bring light to dark days.  
> Sometimes, I read to remind me there's a reason to keep breathing.
> 
> And every piece of work I read changes me in some way.  
> But occasionally, a writer so poetic comes along that they steal my breath completely.  
> Last night, that writer was @Caro_the_Poet.
> 
> This chapter and several of my heartbeats are dedicated to her piece, When you smile.  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/27895666
> 
> Thank you, @Caro xo
> 
> \--oOo--

*Jack*

She’s the last of the quartet we collect in Teal’c’s Jeep in the pearly pre-dawn. She’s waiting on her porch, of course. Always on time.

I wonder, as I shoulder her overnight bag to her murmured hello, if she knows what the gentle midnight blue of her sweater does to her eyes.

With any other woman it would be a rhetorical question. But eight years with her have taught me she genuinely believes she is no more than average. Less, even, possibly.

Occasionally, in the midst of battle, in the heat of saving the world, she allows herself to bubble to the surface.

For a second, then, her eyes flash fire.

For a moment, at that golden point, if you show her that you believe in her, her smile ignites a hidden fuse that sparks transcendence and allows her to live in her full radiance, if only for the instant she needs to make an insanely courageous judgement call.

She burns with fierceness that steals your breath and binds you to every shift in her mood, each flicker of her face; that makes you pour the strength of each beat left in your tired heart into rooting for her impossible plan.

Because her plan always comes through.

She always comes through.

Though you never manage to untangle your dreams from her inexorable gravity after it’s over and she’s faded back into the small person she believes herself to be and gone home.

Each time, after the crisis is over, she gives her half-apologetic, half-relieved grin, sinks back into the supporting role.

But you carry a strand of her home, tangled round your heart.

Night after night, you drown in the depth of the truth she burned with once, in the heat of saving the world.

As she slides into the front seat that I vacated for her, she offers us a bashful grin of hello and my heart trips in the web her smiles have weaved for it, before sagging back into the cage of our circumstance.

Still, like a dog worrying at the frayed edge of a bandage, I try to raise a smile in her all the way to the cabin.

It has some effect, at least. It lifts the already happy tone of the car to one of heady, pre-Christmas euphoria for all of us.

By the time we pull in to a roadside diner for breakfast, guffaws and chuckles follow us inside and we order pancakes instead of toast.

Daniel, Teal’c and I have done this trip three times, but today it feels more like a holiday than ever before.

She has that effect on people, too, even though she doesn’t realise. Her gentle presence makes the sunshine warmer.

For a moment, as she offers a call-back to one of Teal’c’s straight faced crackers, a cloud scuds across the sun and I shiver at the thought of having her be angry with me.

I’m not sure I could breathe in a world where she despised me.

Daniel’s elbow connects with my arm, and the air rushes back in. She’s smiling. She told me she loves me. She said she wants to be a mother to our children.

The world is a better place than it has been for a decade.

As long as I don’t fuck this up.

As long as I don’t fuck this up.

I close my eyes and see the clearing in the woods I want to take her to. Maybe as the sun sets behind us, casting the pond in molten gold. Maybe at dawn as dove grey fades to soft pink before its fiery head lifts the day above the horizon.

My heart beat slows.

My terror recedes.

And when I open my eyes again she’s looking at me in the rear-view mirror, a smile playing on her lips.

And everything is right with the world.


	13. Unravelling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s like witchcraft, the way he can make me believe in his words when he pulls me close and tells me I’m beautiful.   
> It has to be witchcraft, because when I’m with him, when he looks at me, I feel as if I am the woman he sees. 
> 
> The second he steps away, reality places its heavy boot on the throat of my dreams.  
> I am not the person he thinks I am.  
> I want to be, I want to be, for him more than for anyone else, ever.  
> But wanting isn’t reality.  
> The reality is I’m a good brain in a shitty, broken body.  
> I got the brain.   
> I should be content with that.  
> How conceited, how stupid, how vain of me to have believed I could be more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> True love heals. But it doesn't happen overnight.  
> And the messy, ugly process of healing can be hurtful for everyone involved.
> 
> We rise up with the help of those we love, and we fall down again into the swamp we've learnt to believe we deserve.  
> Over and over.  
> Until one day, we learn to believe it when we say: "I am worthy."
> 
> I like to put Sam on a pedestal, the way Jack does. It's been hard to write her as someone broken. This version of her may not be your favourite -- I don't think it's my favourite either! But I hope it helps some of you to see your hero in you, and you in her.  
> xo
> 
> \--oOo--

*Sam*

The unravelling is inevitable.

The day has been too perfect.

Anything this magical cannot last.

It begins with the innocence of a casual question from Daniel as we watch the smoke on the barbecue drifting into the evening sky.

The smell of woodsmoke and sun-warmed grass mingles with the fresh bitter coldness of beer on my tongue and makes the first thread that pulls feel harmless. Makes me believe it’s just a conversation.

“So, Teal’c tells me no more Pete?” Daniel asks.

I take another sip of my beer, watch the smoke rising.

My body is light after a day spent with friends, after hours sitting on the fishing deck in the sun. Light as the tendrils of white smoke against the darkened sky.

I feel light enough to let go of the past and drift into the future alongside it.

“No more Pete,” I nod slowly.

Daniel’s eyes are clear and caring.

“You okay?” He asks softly.

And the woodsmoke curdles in my lungs.

_How can he ask me that? How can he ask if I’m okay?_

_Hasn’t he been part of this perfect day?_

_Did he think I was just pretending to be happy, the way I had to pretend every time that constricting band of gold and diamond slipped over my knuckle?_

_How can he ask that with Jack right here, poking at our steaks on the grill?_

“Of course I’m okay, Daniel. What makes you imply I’m not?”

A knife has crept into my words. One Daniel doesn’t deserve. After all, I’m the one who faked happiness for so long that most of my friends thought it was real. I’m the one who deserves the cutting remark. Me. Not the person who was dead when it happened,

Daniel doesn’t flinch, merely lifts one shoulder.

“It’s a big life change, that’s all.” He pauses, as if considering dropping the subject.

I try to force his hand, desperate to regain the glow of belonging that had warmed my skin all day.

“I wasn’t right for him. Not a big deal. Just an error of judgement.”

I turn away with what I hope looks like nonchalance. But my ribs have become tight.

“Sam. An error of judgement is ordering the fish at a steakhouse. You’ve turned down men and women for all of the eight years I’ve known you for the smallest reason, and yet you went as far as setting a wedding date with Pete.”

My fingers clench around the neck of my beer bottle. I shift them further down, to where the glass bites with cold, hoping it will cool the sudden flush of guilt that rushes through me.

Behind me, the man whose presence I both dread and crave right now speaks for the first time.

Jack’s words are a low growl of warning, ominous as a rumble of thunder in a clear blue sky.

“Daniel, she doesn’t have to explain herself to you.”

And the shame that shoots through me pins me to the ground, forcing me to twist back to face him. To face them both.

_Who did I think I was, making easy promises of raising children with him when I couldn’t even be enough to keep dull, accepting Pete satisfied?_

“I’m just not wife material, Daniel.” I sigh.

I’m grateful for the darkness that hides my face, that shields me from the anger rolling in waves from Jack as hisshaking hand spears the meat.

_You knew this was coming,_ Jonas’s snide voice echoes in my skull. _You led me on. You didn’t expect to be able to tease me and walk away, did you?_

The night is suddenly cold. I wrap my arms around my waist.

With a metallic clang, the barbecue tongs clatter into the hook on the edge of the grill.

“Excuse me, I’ll go get the plates.”

Jack’s statement is polite, but his voice is black with fury. The door to the cabin rattles as it slams shut behind him.

And without his body next to mine, the slender grip I have on the edge of my fraying self-belief is ripped away.

It’s like witchcraft, the way he can make me believe in his words when he pulls me close and tells me I’m beautiful.

It has to be witchcraft, because when I’m with him, when he looks at me, I feel as if I _am_ the woman he sees.

The second he steps away, reality places its heavy boot on the throat of my dreams.

I am not the person he thinks I am.

I want to be, I want to be, for him more than for anyone else, ever.

But wanting isn’t reality.

The reality is I’m a good brain in a shitty, broken body.

I got the brain.

I should be content with that.

How conceited, how stupid, how vain of me to have believed I could be more.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, my eyes on the decking. “It’s my fault he’s upset. I’ll go apologise.”

Daniel calls my name as I close the door behind me, but I daren’t look back.

I hear him before I see him, banging drawers and cabinet doors.

The familiarity of anger comforts me.

I deserve anger. Not charity.

“I’m sorry,” I let my words precede me as I enter the kitchen.

Rage-tight muscles cord in his arms. He’s more powerful than Pete could ever be. And even though I’m combat trained now, he’s every bit as likely to overpower me as Jonas was when I was a cadet.

“What are you doing, Sam?” He bites through clenched teeth.

I place my beer on the counter, fold my arms closer around my waist.

_Telling the truth,_ I want to say.

But when Jonas asked these questions, he didn’t want me to interrupt.

I lower my eyelids and wait.

I flinch when his hand touches my elbow.

“What are you doing?” he asks again, sadness tingeing his fury.

I’ve heard that sadness before. It comes before the breakdown. Before the pain.

I steel myself for the bite of his hand, the sting of his words.

My heart is thundering, but my brain is calm. I know what I have to do to stay alive.

I hear my words from far away when they come.

“I’m sorry to have led you on. If Pete deserved better than me, you deserve a thousand times more.”

His fingers snap off my skin, and I brace for impact.

But his voice comes, not his hand.

“What the fuck? _Pete_ deserved better than _you?_ That _rapist?”_

“He wasn’t…” I trail off in confusion.

He swings away from me, and even as my gut stutters in relief at his anger being further away, I miss his closeness. I miss it dangerously. As if I were seventeen again.

His fist hits the counter.

“Come on, Carter. You blow up suns. Don’t fucking stand there and tell me you believe that. Forcing you to do something you fear, something that hurts you, for his own sexual pleasure? And you _defend him?”_

Somewhere deep inside my heart, an atom of honesty flames. _It wasn’t Pete. It was Jonas. It was me. Pete was dealing with the aftermath of me wanting to be something I was not, when I was seventeen._ But my heart is a cauldron of shame, and the truth trips, and falls, and drowns.

“I always said yes,” is the sodden statement that drags itself out of my mouth in the end, half dead.

Jack strides away, fury carving lines in every plane of his arms, his back.

“And confession under torture is truth to you now?”

His voice has turned snide.

I feel something other than desperation for the first time since I stepped inside. A flash of anger of my own. Sarcasm is easier to handle than care. I can snipe back when I’m shot at.

My words are sharp, too, quick with righteous fire.

“Stop making me the victim so you can rescue me, Jack. I’m not the princess you want me to be. Blaming Pete for my shortcomings won’t make me any better in bed.”

The words are acid fog between us.

The minute I say them, I shrink from their burn.

The kitchen counter moans under the pressure of his hands.

“I’m not doing this,” he whispers, thrusting past me without looking back.

And in the scalding silence he leaves behind, I sink blindly into the nearest chair, my head in my hands.

I hear him open the patio door, hear him telling Daniel and Teal’c he’s got a headache and is going to bed. Listen to his footsteps as they stamp towards me and right past me down the corridor.

Feel the soft click of his bedroom door closing the final shutter on the tiny window of hope left in my heart.

Quiet footsteps approach from the patio, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and cologne.

They, too, walk right past me into the kitchen.

I’ve become a phantom.

The owner of the footsteps rattles around a cupboard. Glasses clink and liquid pours.

A tumbler of bourbon appears in Daniel’s hand on my knee.

“I’m guessing Jack finally told you how he feels about you,” he says drily. “Drink up. It’ll help.”

I shake my head against his misconception, but I have no energy left to explain.

“Hey, trust me. I’m a doctor — of sorts.” I can hear the soft smile in his words.

I take the tumbler with a shaking hand.

“You’ve no idea what I said to him, Daniel.”

The memory of my words is circling my head, vulture keen.

I swallow down bile.

“Well, I’m guessing it wasn’t ‘ _what took you so long, Jack, I love you too_ ’, or you’d be in there with him and Teal’c and I would be left to eat all the food by ourselves.”

He takes a deep drink out of his own glass and rests his free hand on my knee.

“Whatever it was, Sam, whatever happened with Pete and whoever you end up with in future, doesn’t change the fact that you’re family. Come on, there really is too much food for just Teal’c and me. Let’s eat.”


	14. Fall seven, rise eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It’s no use, dad, I’ll never skate like them. Let’s just go home. Please?"
> 
> At that moment, in the game being shown on the overhead television screens, a player had reached to slam the puck into goal and thudded to the ground before bouncing up to celebrate.
> 
> I’d plonked my butt onto the ice next to Charlie and pointed at the screen.
> 
> "You know the only difference between that guy and you?" I’d asked. "He got up one more time than he fell down." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a Japanese proverb so meaningful to me that I want it as a tattoo: fall seven, rise eight.
> 
> Jack is struggling with his love for Sam and his fear of his past repeating, every bit as much as we struggled to see him leaving her in his kitchen in pain.
> 
> I hope this chapter has you holding out your hand to him again.  
> xo
> 
> \--oOo--

*Jack*

Black Ops teaches you unexpected things.

Not how to feel rage so dark you can slit a woman’s throat. No. That is already hidden inside you. It teaches you how to slip from murderous rage to silence in a heartbeat.

Nor does it teach you how to forget the ones you love, the ones you lost. That needs no training, only pain.

In Black Ops, you learn how to remember them when you need to; and to weaponise your love.

_Stop making me the victim so you can rescue me, Jack. I’m not the princess you want me to be. Blaming Pete for my shortcomings won’t make me any better in bed._

Her words lash across my anger-coiled back. At first, when they start, I’m relieved.

I want to kill every person who has ever hurt her,who ever made her feel small.

It’s not her defending them that makes the fury build. It’s the defeat in her blue eyes. The shame in the hunch of her brave shoulders.

So initially, when I hear her finally hitting back instead of cowering, a sunbeam of relief pierces the darkness in my chest.

I hate that I had to stoop to sarcasm to bring it out in her. I know she’s tough, but beneath that she’s pure — so pure I don’t want to draw her into my twisted methods.

But at first, when I hear her anger snapping back at me, I think the sarcasm was worth it this time, if that’s what made her rise up again.

Then her meaning soaks in.

And I’m hurtled back in time, to the weekend after Charlie’s funeral. Standing in the same kitchen. Facing Sara,

She had had no problem with anger. And I had welcomed it. I deserved it. I needed for someone else to punish me, so that I could breathe.

But that night, Sara’s words had made a cut deeper than we could recover from.

_Stop asking me rescue you, Jack,_ she had said, her eyes hard. _I’m not the hero you want me to be. I can’t stop loving you, but I will never stop blaming you._

I had nodded, then, my back to her, and offered to take her back to the city. II had surrendered without a fight. In that moment, we had become uneasy friends.

All the way back to our house, I had ached to reach for her, to take back my acceptance of our end.

To fight.

But I hadn’t known how.

Oh, I had learnt to fight in the years following that night. With a ruthlessness that earned medals and won wars.

I’d learnt to never back down.

Yet now, ten years later, filling the room with her fragile anger is the one person I can’t fight.

Sam never told me what had happened to her to make her fear sex. What I know from her reaction to my arousal, that night after drinks at O’Malley’s, is that the person who did this to her was a lover.

A minute ago, when she flinched from my touch, a new, a blacker realisation clicked into place in my soul.

She expects me to hit her.

My hands clench on the edge of the worktop, the sting of their grip on the wood tempering the churning in my stomach.

I lash out at Pete. Call him what I know him to be, though just articulating the word hurts.

And she hits back with the one thing I can’t fight.

_Stop making me the victim so you can rescue me._

She won’t let me rescue her. She expects me to hurt her. She’s pushing me to give up on her.

Like Sara did.

And I won’t give up on her.

But I don’t know how to tell her that without her flinching from my touch.

Bile rises in my throat at the thought of her shrinking from me.

I need to get away before the walls close in on me.

It takes all my training to keep my feet steady as I make excuses to the guys and walk back past her hunched form. I can’t breathe with the need to gather her to my chest and hold her until our words are no more than a memory.

But if she flinches when I reach for her, I won’t survive.

I keep my feet moving until the bedroom door closes behind me before I let myself drop the floor.

—oOo—

The team's dinner conversation, the comforting sounds of them cleaning up and getting ready for sleep, forms an incongruous soundtrack to a fever dream populated by my ghosts. Everyone I’ve let down, everyone I’ve lost and could have saved if only I’d taken the left flank instead of them. A litany of people I’ve failed. And watching over them all, a boy with a smile as wide and open as Sam’s.

_I can’t do it, dad!_ A seven year old Charlie’s tearful plea drifts towards me in the silence that follows them settling into bed, Sam and Daniel in the bunk beds in Charlie’s room, Teal’c to Kelno’reem in the sitting room.

In the darkness, his defeated face looks up at me as it did that day after his umpteenth thumping fall on the ice.

My lips lift into a shadow of the smile I’d given him as I had crouched to untangle his skates from each other, checking to make sure they were still snug, before holding out my hand to him.

_Can’t do what buddy? Can’t get up? Here, I’ll give ya a hand._

_It’s no use, dad, I’ll never skate like them. Let’s just go home. Please?_

At that moment, in the game being shown on the overhead television screens, a player had reached to slam the puck into goal and thudded to the ground before bouncing up to celebrate.

I’d plonked my butt onto the ice next to Charlie and pointed at the screen.

_You know the only difference between that guy and you?_ I’d asked. _He got up one more time than he fell down._

I’d wrapped my arm around his slight shoulders.

_We can go home if you want,_ I’d said. _Or you can stay a little longer and see if you can get better at getting up than you are at falling down._

He’d never learnt to skate, in the end. By the Summer, his love of baseball had eclipsed his passion for hockey.

But when he rushed into the house after that first skating session and Sara had asked him how he’d liked it, he’d proudly told her that he’d gotten up one more time than he’d fallen down.

I crawl onto the bed and reach into the bedside cabinet, to where Charlie’s favourite teddy waits for me on nights like this.

Together, we watch the moon trail across the sky.

My eyes open to the sound of the first bird, the maniac who always starts shouting half an hour before dawn because he’s so excited about every frikkin sunrise.

In my arms, I hold the physical reminder of Charlie’s smile. And in my heart, a calm knowledge of what I can do for her. For us.

We both fell down last night.

We fell hard.

But I can get up one more time than I’ve fallen down.

And I can offer her my hand in case she wants to rise again, too.


	15. Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Charlie gave me advice, once,” I’m babbling, rushing on to tell her how I feel before she pulls away, and it’s only when I say his name that I know. He is right here, helping me out, as I asked him to. The world stops spinning around us. My heart lets out a thump of petrified certainty.
> 
> \--oOo--

*Jack*

I dress quickly, grabbing a smallish pair of socks an extra jacket from the closet for her. Summer’s heat lingers, but the mornings can still hold a chill. And if she needs space after we talk, if she chooses to stay in the woods before seeing my face again, I want her to be warm.

At the door, I pause, the words I’m preparing to say to her a mountain in the air ahead of me.

Closing my eyes, I touch Charlie’s teddy in my jacket pocket. My thumb finds the spot behind its ear, where Pegasus likes to be tickled.

“Help me out here, Charlie,” I murmur. “You’re better at love than me.”

I step into the silent house.

The door to Charlie’s bedroom is ajar and through it I can spot their two sleeping forms. She is on the bottom bunk, her head turned towards the door. Her eyes are closed, but a frown creases her brow.

Years of not wanting to wake him has taught me where to step to avoid the squeaky floor boards. With my hand on the bed post to steady myself so my knees don’t pop in protest, I lower to a crouch.

Our lips are close enough to touch. I could wake her with a kiss. But the thought of her flinching when she feels my touch constricts my throat.

I purse my lips, steel my heart. This is not about me.

I bring my thumb to my finger tips and press them gently to her cheek, the way Peg wakes her with his paw.

Her eyes snap open, silvery in the filtered moonlight.

Sadness clouds them when she realises it’s me, but she doesn’t shrink away.

I try to keep everything but my love for her out of my smile. Slowly, I move my index finger to my lip in a gesture of silence, tilt my head towards the open door in an invitation to follow me.

I can’t bear to wait to see her reaction.

Instead, I turn away and move quietly out towards the front door where our hiking boots wait.

My heart lifts as I hear the sigh of her covers being pulled back.

Both pairs of our boots are in my hands, her jacket pinched under my arm, when she catches up with me.

Without hesitation, she steps in front of me and opens the door, holding it and stepping through behind me. My chest aches at the way she reads and completes my body’s movement. I wish it could be that simple with my heart.

As soon as the door closes behind her, she reaches for her boots, and her fingers brush mine.

The contact breaks a dam in me. I have to hold her.

I move slowly, wrapping the hand still holding my boots around her shoulders. She sags into me, drops her face into my shoulder. Her fingers don’t move away from mine where they touch around her boots. But she doesn’t put her other arm around me.

Regret thickens my throat.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper into her hair.

She only shakes her head against me, the slightest movement.

We’re trapped in amber for breaths that stretch into minutes until I trust myself to speak.

I slide my arm along her shoulder as I pull away, prolonging the contact.

“Would you mind walking with me? There’s a place I want to show you. It’s.” I inhale, and her eyes come to rest warily on mine. “It was Charlie’s favourite spot to watch the sunrise from.”

Her whole face softens. She smooths her hands along the back of the tracksuit bottoms she sleeps in, takes the socks I offer her without a word and sits down on the step to pull them on.

Standing up, she turns to me with a small nod and a sad quirk of the lips.

We walk in silence, guided by the beam of my headlamp. She’s close enough to me that I can feel the heat radiating from her arm, but she doesn’t initiate touch.

Halfway round the pond, the pale glimmer of light on the horizon allows me to switch off the lamp and pocket it.

She stops walking, turns to me.

Her mouth works around words that tug her eyes into defeat.

“You don’t have to take me all the way there, Jack,” she says softly. “I won’t make a scene. I…”

Her eyes drop to the ground, unable to register my shock.

“What?” I breathe.

Her fingers twist into each other.

“I fucked up,” she says. “I’m fucked up. And I understand that you won’t do this. I respect that. It’s… I’m … I really hope we can be friends one day.”

With horror, I replay my exit from the kitchen last night. _I’m not doing this,_ I had said as I fought against my rage.

“God, that’s not what I meant! Oh, my God! Please, you have to believe me!”

I wrap my hands around hers, my breath hitching.

“I’m the one who fucked up! I let you fall. I asked you to trust me not to let you fall, and last night I did. And I didn’t know how to live with myself because I couldn’t catch you.”

I’d prepared a careful speech, but it flies out of my mind and my feelings tumble out, jagged and raw.

“Sam, I love you with my life. You made me want to live again when I thought it couldn’t happen. And I wanted to be good enough for you. I wanted to be better than I’ve been. I made you a promise I couldn’t keep. I promised not to let you fall, but I can’t do that, Sam. I fall too often myself. And I know you don’t need rescuing, but I can’t stop myself from wanting to murder anyone who hurt you, who made you believe that love was pain, because you’re the most precious thing in my world. I’ll try to understand you more, but I know I’ll fail, and rage, and let you down. I didn’t bring you out here to leave you! I came to ask you to forgive me. For last night and for the hundreds of times I’ll fuck up in the future. Because the only thing I know for sure is I don’t want a future without you in it.

“Charlie gave me advice, once,” I’m babbling, rushing on to tell her how I feel before she pulls away, and it’s only when I say his name that I know. He is right here, helping me out, as I asked him to. The world stops spinning around us. My heart lets out a thump of petrified certainty.

Tears sting my eyes, but I let them.

I lift my face to hers, and sink slowly to one knee.

I take his teddy from my pocket, turn her hand over in mine and rest it in her outstretched palm.

“Charlie told me the most important thing is being better at getting back up than you are at falling down. Sam, I fell down hard last night. And I’ll fall again. But I promise I will always get back up and try to be the person you deserve. And I promise I’ll help you stand up when you fall, in whatever way you need me to, as best I can. For the rest of my life, if you’ll let me.”

She has never looked more beautiful than now, outlined in the pearl grey gloaming, her cheeks streaked with fresh tears, her hair mussed with sleep, wearing a faded t-shirt that droops over one shoulder.

No breath has ever been sweeter than the one I take as she drops to both knees in front of me, cradles the teddy against her chest, wipes her thumb across the wetness on my face.

Her lips feather against mine, soft breath against my mouth.

My hand catches her face as I open to her kiss, a slow meeting of lips, once, twice, three times.

She pulls me closer.

I wrap my hand around the soft curve of her neck.

Her tongue glides along my teeth, finds mine, traces love in silent words.

“Jack,” she whispers against my mouth, “I’m terrified in a thousand different ways. But yes.”


	16. A thousand days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I see it happening in slow motion. The doubt that rises in his eyes.  
> “I shouldn’t have told you that. I should have waited. It was too soon. I didn’t mean to pressure you, Carter.”  
> He’s walking backwards as he speaks, yanking on his fingers to free them.
> 
> And on this beautiful rock hurtling headlong round the sun, I recognise our dance.  
> It’s the conversation about children all over again.  
> We bounce and swirl like petals in a hurricane. But not once in the past week have we doubted our feelings. Only our worthiness.
> 
> \--oOo--

*Sam*

Life is crazy, on this beautiful rock of ours.

We delude ourselves into feeling the earth, firm and solid beneath us, holding us in its gravity. But we’re hurtling through space at a speed that leaves my stomach behind when I think about it, with nothing more than a bubble of atmosphere to keep us breathing.

This morning, with the dew soaking damp brown patches into the fabric of my tracksuit bottoms, with his hand on my neck and his lips on mine, I feel the speed with which we travel.

A week ago, he was my guilty fantasy; the boss I got to steal time with because we shared a cat.

Six days ago, he found my shameful secret. How weak I am as a woman. He swooped in and rescued me. Quite literally swooped in and rescued me. And told me he loved me, despite my shortcomings.

Four days ago, I thought the world would end without him knowing that I loved him too. I’d forgotten myself for a moment and kissed him.

Three nights ago, we’d made love. Well, as close as I can get. And he hadn’t minded my brokenness then. In his arms, I had felt precious. I had flown. I have never felt that way with anyone before.

Two evenings ago I’d looked in his sad eyes and forgotten myself again. I’d spoken about his children. Our children. And meant every word.

Because in his arms, I feel so safe, so anchored, that I believe I can be the person he thinks he sees when he looks at me.

Last night, an innocent question had dragged me back into the past. And I’d thrown away my chance with him.

I had fallen asleep with the old, familiar knot in my stomach. The knot of knowing I had failed the man I loved. So old, yet still as raw as the first night Jonas locked me in the darkness of his closet because I was so infuriating that he couldn’t bear to look at me.

It was a kindness, I thought this morning when he woke me while the others still slept, for him to get this over with in private. To tell me what I had known all along. That he’d thought I was someone better than I am.

Then he’d knelt down.

Then he’d spoken of the rest of his life.

And much as it scared me, it was clear as the rising sun. Where else would I be, but by his side?

He is my gravity.

When I’m near him, everything feels easy.

Not desperate, as it had with Jonas.

Not lonely, like with Pete.

When I’m with him, the person reflected back at me in his eyes is already healed. All I need to become her, is time.

But we’re on a rock hurtling through space.

I’m living on a funfair ride.

I pull back, and he lets me go, his eyes searching mine for direction.

“Is there still time to make it to Charlie’s sunrise spot?”

My voice trembles.

He nods, concern flitting across his eyes before he smiles.

“Plenty of time. C’mon.”

It feels right to walk with my fingers twined through his.

The thrill of his palm rubbing against mine mingles with the calm it brings while my brain flies in impossible directions.

“There’s smoke rising from your ears, ya know.”

His voice breaks into my spinning thoughts.

“Sorry,” I laugh apologetically.

He stops walking, his hand in mine tugging me around to face him.

His lips twitch into a small smile. He waits in silence. The way he’s waited for me to turn my thoughts into words a hundred times over the past eight years, his mere presence enough to calm my fears, to give me the confidence to speak.

Except normally the thing we’re re saving is the world. Not me.

I have no technical term for my mad joy, or my crushing fear of disappointing him.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

Purse my lips to force the truth free.

Still. No words come.

I see it happening in slow motion. The doubt that rises in his eyes.

“I shouldn’t have told you that. I should have waited. It was too soon. I didn’t mean to pressure you, Carter.”

He’s walking backwards as he speaks, yanking on his fingers to free them.

And on this beautiful rock hurtling headlong round the sun, I recognise our dance.

It’s the conversation about children all over again.

We bounce and swirl like petals in a hurricane. But not once in the past week have we doubted our feelings. Only our worthiness.

“Jack, stop. Take me to the sunrise. Please.”

The lines of doubt still etch deep shadows into his cheeks, but he nods and starts walking along the path again, his fingers still in mine.

The stuffed toy in my other hand has fur worn thin in patches.

I hug it to my chest as we walk into the pinkening day.

“We don’t do things the normal way, do we?” I ask conversationally as he leads me around a corner and helps me over a fallen trunk, all without letting me go.

“Oh, my God. That’s beautiful,” I breathe, my own question forgotten.

The clearing is man-made. A circle of felled trees create a flat patch of grass on the edge of a shallow rise that overlooks the pond. On the horizon, the sun peeks her head over the tip of the world, cascading colour over the water.

Jack smiles with hesitant pride and clambers over the trunk perched at the edge, wide enough that we can lean against it without sitting down.

I wait for him to lean back and rest my back against his chest.

Certain as a heartbeat, his arms surround me.

The sun edges higher, bathing us in light so fierce I have to close my eyes.

I raise the toy bear in my hand, bring it to rest against his.

“Is this Charlie’s?” I ask.

I feel the movement of his nod against my hair.

“What do you mean, we don’t do things the normal way?”

His voice is gruff, an echo of my quaking heart.

And another reason to give our dance a name.

I press my back more firmly against him, pull his arms closer.

“Normal couples start with a kiss, then sex. Then they have a fight or two and decide they love each other. And years later they discuss kids and the rest of their life.”

I feel his head dropping to my shoulder, his body softening around me.

“We started with love,” I say.

His lips press a kiss to the skin of my shoulder.

“We started with love,” he repeats, his breath chasing shivers over my skin.

“I’m so scared that you’ll run out of patience with my problems with sex.”

It’s easier than I thought it would be, to speak my deepest fear, when my eyes are closed, my face warmed by the sun, my back cradled against him. Still, it comes out in a whisper.

I wait for him to argue. A small, panicked voice in my brain screams at me to brace for anger.

But instead of denial, he turns his face into the crook of my neck.

“And I’m terrified you’ll meet someone your own age, with a brain that rivals yours, and realise you’re in love with them. Or just leave because I bore you.”

He draws a shuddering breath after he speaks and I know that his fear is as deep as my own.

I open my eyes to the the streaming sunlight, following the tendril of hope that sprang up in me at his words.

“So how about a trial period? A thousand day test drive. Only you, and me, and teddy need to know. Oh, and Peg. Because he already knows how I feel about you anyway.”

My body moves with the rise and fall of his chest.

“In a thousand days, I’ll be retired.”

His voice holds a spark of hope.

I nod. I hadn't picked a thousand at random. He is due to retire in less than three years.

“And if you haven’t run out of patience with my problems by then —“ I begin.

“If you haven’t realised how much better you can do by then,” he cuts me off.

I suppress a huff of exasperation.

“Then in a thousand days, we can come back here, and turn this into a ring thing,” he breathes against my neck.

I smile at his words and at the brightness of the dawn.

“Jack?” I ask.

“Tell me about Charlie?”

—oOo—

The rumble of our stomachs draws us down the mountain when the sun is already high enough for the water of the pond to have turned from gold to sparkling blue.

We go slowly, our footfalls matching, arms around each other’s waists.

As we approach the cabin, I pause.

“Jack.”

He turns to face me, his features suffused with calm. His long fingers brush away a strand of windblown hair from my temple.

“Would you be okay with Daniel and Teal’c knowing? I… they’re my family.”

I don’t know how else to phrase it.

His lips are soft on mine.

“Daniel will be more dangerous than a deranged system lord if he finds out we're keeping it from him,” he smiles.

“C’mon. I could eat a horse.”

Is tone is casual, but is arm around my waist is a little tighter as we round the last bend in the path.

Four eyes find us over two steaming cups of coffee.

Jack’s thumb strokes reassurance against the skin of my hip as we take the next slow steps towards them.

There is a grin the size of Alaska on Daniel’s face.

“See, Teal’c,” he says, not taking his eyes off us. “I told you that wasn’t bears we heard in the woods. Bears don’t scream each other’s names.”

My jaw drops open at the way my gentle friend went straight for locker room talk.

Next to me, Jack’s entire body rumbles with laughter.

His free arm circles my waist and he drops a soft kiss against my ear.

“He’s lying’ through his teeth, Carter. The bears in these parts are eloquent. Besides, you were screaming “Oh God, yes, you magnificent, majestic animal, not my name. Ooof! Hey!”

His cocky joke dissolves into laughter when my fist connects with his stomach.

He pulls me into a bear hug.

And on this beautiful, crazy rock hurtling through space, I relax into his gravity.

—END OF PART TWO—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unicorns, Pegasus II has been a rollercoaster for me in so many ways. 
> 
> I've also asked a LOT of you as my readers - to watch our heroes fail, to cross the line between fiction and reality, and to essentially be beta-readers for another project as I figure out how to approach a very deep and dark topic in a sensitive and engaging way that respects the people who live through it themselves.
> 
> I have been blown away by your generosity of spirit, by your willingness to give tough feedback and advice.  
> You make me a better writer.  
> And when the OC novel that you helped me improve is published, one of my biggest shout-outs will be to fan fiction as a valid and valuable training ground.
> 
> The great news is that the hard part is over. You have shown me what I need to do to get two damaged people into the light. Pegasus part three is called a thousand days because it deals with the soft part, with two people learning how to love themselves as much as they love each other in a thousand ways. There may even be a thousand chapters! Though I'm not promising 😝
> 
> I'm also going to step away from this and write something totally unrelated for Shipmas, especially for those of you who didn't enjoy this story but stuck with me anyway.
> 
> I cannot tell you how much you mean to me.  
> xo


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